5.1 Beneficial and harmful effects
Beneficial and Harmful Effects of Technological Innovations
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People are the driving force behind creating computing innovations.
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Innovations are crafted with specific goals in mind. But they can have unforeseen consequences, both positive and negative.
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A creator cant predict all the things that can be done with their innovation as there are so many things that could be done and as technology evolves, new uses are made
Dopamine
Postives
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Social Connection: Social media platforms allow people to connect with friends and family, especially those who may be geographically distant. It facilitates communication, sharing of experiences, and staying updated on each other’s lives.
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Learning Opportunities: Many video games are designed to be educational and can enhance cognitive skills such as problem-solving, strategic thinking, and hand-eye coordination. Some games even incorporate historical or scientific elements, providing players with additional knowledge.
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Creativity: Video games often stimulate creativity and imagination. Games with open-world exploration or creative building elements encourage players to think outside the box and express themselves in unique ways.
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Community Building: Both video games and social media can foster a sense of community. Gamers often form online communities where they share tips, strategies, and experiences. Social media also allows people with common interests to connect and form communities.
Negatives
- Anthony Rosner story.
- Played up to 18 hours every single day and became extremely succesfull in world of warcraft but suffered in every other aspect of his life: school and relationships
- Eventually quit gaming, became a succesful DJ, and created a documentary.
Example Beneficial and Corresponding Harmful Effects of Computing
Tik Tok
- Postive: Platform for people to share their creativity and talents
- Negative: “Doom Scrolling”
Popcorn Hack 1
What is an example of a computing innovation with unintended consequences, whether positive or negative?
- ANSWER: ChatGPT. It was intended to give answers to people who have questions, but people use it to cheat.
Mitigating Risks/Responsiblity
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Targeted advertising, machine learning, and data mining are all good exampels of how unintended uses can have both positive and negative effecs
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Even though it is impossible to predict all possibilities, a responsible programmer’s goal it to forsee and prevent any unintended/negative uses and effects
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Rapid sharing of a program can lead to events outside the creators control
Popcorn Hack 2
How can responsible programming help contribute to minimizing unintended harmful impacts?
- ANSWER: It can help with the lack of cheating
Finding Balance
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Finding a balance between innovation and responsibility is important
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Programmers shape the impact of their creations on society.
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Unintended uses of innovations may potentiallyhave harmful impacts on society
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While negative effects could occur, Innovations often bring unintended benefits by helping advance the current states of technology.
Popcorn Hack 3
Why is it important for programmers to consider the unintended consequences of their innovations?
- ANSWER: It could lead to negative outcomes for the people who use the innovations.
Bonus Hack(0.05 extra points)
Self Reflect on your use of technology? Whats your daily screen time? What beneficial effects of technology do you utilize and what are some negative consequences you succcumb to?
- ANSWER: My daily scrren time is about 6 hours. Some beneficial effects is that it help with research for homework and it gives me stuff to do when I’m bored.
Homework
- Choose an innovation(Social media, computers, phones, etc.) and talk about an alternative use than what its actually use for. Then, give the potential positive and negative impacts of the use you came up with
- ANSWER Social media can serve as a platform for mental health support groups. Individuals dealing with mental health issues could connect with others who share similar experiences, offering a virtual support network that complements traditional mental health services. However, sharing health information on social media raises significant privacy concerns. Striking a balance between connectivity and privacy is challenging, as personal health details are sensitive and should be handled with utmost care.
- How might you as a programmer implement code that helps your program have less unintented risks.
- ANSWER Conduct integration testing to ensure that different components of your program work seamlessly together. This helps identify issues that may arise when different parts of the code interact. You can also validate user inputs and external data to prevent vulnerabilities such as injection attacks. Ensure that your code can handle unexpected input without compromising security or stability.