Unwrapping the Gift: Introduction to Microchips

Chapter 1: Unwrapping the Gift - Introduction

• The microchip is a groundbreaking technology, similar to Gutenberg's printing press, with significant economic, social, and political impacts.
• The pace of technological change is rapidly increasing.
• The way people use computers and mobile devices will drastically change in the coming years.
• The rapid pace of change, widespread use of computers, and their effect on everyday life characterized the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
• Social impacts and controversies linked to technology are also constantly changing.

The Pace of Change

• In 1804, it took Lewis and Clark two and a half years to explore the western United States
• Information moved no faster than a horse for thousands of years until then.
• In 1997, millions viewed the Sojourner robot on Mars via the World Wide Web.
• Telephones, cars, airplanes, radio, and electrical appliances drastically changed how we live in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
• Space exploration was a major technological achievement of the 20th century, including Sputnik in 1957 and the moon landing in 1969.
• Computer systems in cars now perform tasks like braking for pedestrians and self-parking.
• Computer programs beat human experts in games like chess and Jeopardy.
• Approximately five billion people use cellphones, with U.S. users sending over a trillion texts annually.
• Facebook has over 800 million members, and Twitter users tweet hundreds of thousands of times daily.
• The first electronic computers were built in the 1940s.
• The transistor, a key component of microprocessors, was invented in 1947.
• In 1956, IBM created a hard disk drive weighing over a ton with only five megabytes of storage.
• Modern devices can hold a terabyte of storage, equivalent to 250 hours of high-definition video.
• The 1991 space shuttle had a 1-megahertz computer, while luxury cars ten years later had 100-megahertz computers.
• Modern computers now commonly have speeds of several gigahertz.
• The speed and magnitude of technological changes are rapidly increasing.

Change and Unexpected Developments

• Computer viruses and copyright challenges emerged with PCs and floppy disks.
• Spam came with email, and databases containing personal information emerged with increased storage and speed.
• Easy access to pornography, privacy threats, and copyright challenges came with the Web, browsers, and search engines.
• Online commerce brought opportunities, identity theft, and scams.
• People once worried about antisocial effects of computers and the Internet
• Now people view it as a very social place for networking, texting, and sharing videos and photos.
• Concerns about the digital divide have decreased as Internet access and cellphones spread globally.

Connections: Cellphones, Social Networking, and More

• The Web, cellphones, social networking, and other electronic devices keep people connected to information and each other constantly.
• In the 1990s, cellphones were mainly used by business people, tech workers, and for emergencies.
• The improvement of cell service and cheaper prices quickly changed that.
• Cellphone makers added cameras, Web connections, and location detection. They became smart-phones.
• The Apple iPhone was introduced in 2007.
• People developed and embraced mobile applications (apps).
• Cellphones have become a common tool for various activities like conversations, messaging, taking pictures, banking, and finding restaurants.
• Smartphones serve as digital wallets, monitor security cameras, and have professional applications.
• Specialized apps are used for healthcare, military operations, and to inform people in poor countries when water is available.
• Unanticipated uses include sexting, location tracking, and malicious data-stealing apps.
• People use cellphones for organizing flash mobs or for crime.
• Terrorists use cellphones to set off bombs.
• Cellphone use raises issues about privacy invasion, data theft, and security for applications like banking.
• Smartphones can collect a lot of data: calls, messages, location, motion, and light levels.
• This data is analyzed to generate information about traffic, commuting patterns, and the spread of disease.
• With enough time and location data, a model predicted a person's future location with over 90% accuracy
• People use cellphones in inappropriate places, and small cameras affect privacy in public places.
• Talking on a cellphone while driving increases accident risk, leading to some states banning handheld phone use while driving.
• New apps deduce when a phone is in a moving car, blocking incoming calls.
• People take greater risks in the wilderness with cellphones, leading to increased rescue calls.

Kill Switches

• Amazon deleted electronic books from Kindles after discovering the publisher did have rights to sell them
• This led to customer outrage and a promise from Amazon not to do it again
• Apple iPhones and Android phones already had a kill switch to remotely delete apps.
• The ability to remotely delete content from devices raises concerns about outsiders reaching into our devices.
• Many IT departments already have access to desktop computers for software installation and deletion. Updates of software also allow companies to delete old versions.
• Companies do not give all details about software kill switches, but the main goal is security: to remove malicious software.
• Kill switches could also remove content that infringes copyrights or content deemed offensive.
• Companies might face pressure from governments.

Social Networking

• Social networking can disconnect us from each other by having us interface more with technology than with people.

• Facebook started as an online version of student directories at Harvard

• Quickly became popular, especially as adults found benefits for personal and business connections. Social networks are tools that allow people to easily share aspects of their lives with family, friends, co-workers, and the public

• Some good, some bad, unanticipated uses of this technology include

• Friends and exes posting embarrassing material

• Stalkers and bullies

• Political activism

• Protest organization and revolutions

• Jurors tweeting about cases

• Privacy issues led to the development of privacy controls and feedback systems.

• Social networks facilitate "crowd funding," allowing people to raise money for charities, political causes, and start-up companies.

• Concerns about sacrificing quality in-person relationships for superficial digital ones have not been realized, as networks enhance relationships.

• Young people who spend a lot of time on social networks may do poorly in school and have behavioral problems.

• Researchers study social phenomena using the masses of data collected from social networks.

Communication and the Web

• Email and the Web have become integral parts of our culture.
• Email started with computer scientists and expanded to more people and businesses.
• The World Wide Web was created by high-energy physicists in 1990, becoming an environment for ordinary users and electronic commerce.
• The Web has grown into a huge library, news source, shopping mall, entertainment center, and multimedia forum in less than a generation.
• The Web gives access to information and audiences and empowers people to make better decisions.
• Software tools help people analyze their health or plan budgets.
• People can read reviews and select entertainment.
• Social Media facilitates fighting back against powerful institutions by shaming them or posting legal documents.
• Businesses use viral marketing to their advantage with their own blogs.

Telemedicine

• Telemedicine refers to remote medical exams, analyses, and procedures using specialized equipment and computer networks.
• Telemedicine assists sick passengers on airplanes and reduces the risk of escape by dangerous criminals in prisons.
• Small-town hospitals use video systems to consult with specialists, eliminating expenses and health risks.
• Health-monitoring devices send readings from a patient's home, while surgeons can perform remote surgery using video and robotic devices.
• Villagers in Malaysia order supplies, check market prices, and email family photos. Farmers in Africa get weather forecasts. Collaborative projects are also abounding on the web.

E-commerce and Free Stuff

• The idea of commercial websites initially horrified Web users in the 1990s.
• The earliest traditional businesses on the Web included UPS and FedEx, while Amazon.com was founded to sell books online.
• Web-based businesses created new business models, with online sales now totaling hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
• E-commerce benefits include access to more products and sellers, lower overhead, and easier comparison shopping.
• Online auctions, for example, gave people access to customers they could not have found efficiently before and consumer saves 10-40% by buying contacts online.
• Websites like PayPal helped to address problems regarding on-line sales.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics, Sensors, and Motion

• Artificial intelligence is when computers perform tasks typically requiring human intelligence.
• AI includes playing complex games, language translation, decision-making based on large amounts of data, and understanding speech.
• Vision is also included in this definition of AI.
• Learning is a characteristic of many Al programs and involves pattern recognition.
• IBM's Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in chess in 1997, while Watson defeated human Jeopardy! champions in 2011.
• Watson processes language and general knowledge, searching and analyzing vast amounts of information.
• Al software can distinguish a swimmer in distress from other swimmers, used in video surveillance systems to help prevent crime
• Search engines use Al techniques to select search results and figure out user intentions.
• People can ask questions of intelligent personal assistants like Apple's Siri using speech recognition.

Tools for Disabled People

• Computer technology is being used to restore abilities, productivity, and independence to people with physical disabilities.
• Some devices assist disables people in using ordinary applications and household and workplace appliances.
• Some improves mobility: Text messaging was popular among deaf before hearing, for instance.
• Computers read information aloud and can translate language.
• Prosthetic devices can be used in place of artificial limbs.

Themes

• New technologies present both new and familiar problems.
• Technology requires adaptations in laws, social institution, business plan etc.
• Solutions for problems resulting from new technology can come from more innovation and the market place.
• Communication with distant countries has both positive and negative and implications.
• Increased trade- off between security and convenience.

Ethics

• The idea of ethics boils down to "doing the right thing"
• It assumes people are rational and make free choices.
• The view is that the individual is in many circumstances is responsible for his or her actions.
• Ethical rules are rules followed by interacting with others.
• The goal: Enhance happiness, human dignity and well being
• They all have judgement and will and act according to achieving them.

A Variety of Ethical Views

• There are many different views on how to establish a firm justification for the rules and how to decide what is ethical in specific cases.
• Ethics is divided by how ethically good and bad acts can have consequences and intrinsic aspects.
• There can not be a clear and simple consensus on solving problem in the world.
• Imperfect is the same as an impossible achievement of service.

Social Contracts and a Theory of Political Justice

• This is a look into the idea of people willing submitting to a common low so that everyone can live in a civil society.
• In this chapter a look is taken into philosophical debates about what exactly leads to forming social and political systems.
• Rawls, for his part, says reasonable will want to cooperate on terms if all accept them and they abide by these rules so we can all engage.