Topics, Readings, and Assignments

Enrollment: If you are looking to enroll in this course but do not meet EECS department enrollment categories, please email the instructors who can provide you with a permission code. Thanks!

Date	Lecture Topic or Assignment	Slides	Assignments
08/29	Free Speech	link	Welcome Form
09/05	No Class!
09/12	Social Connection and Time Well-Spent	link	jump
09/19	Privacy	link	jump
09/26	Government Censorship and Surveilence	link	jump
10/03	Memes and Viral Content	link	jump
10/10	Framing Society and Identity	link	jump
10/17	Software Risks	link	jump
10/24	Algorithmic Bias and Fairness	link	jump
10/31	Guest Mehran Sahami: The Optimization Mindset, Tech Policy, Big Tech	link	jump
11/07	Guest Speaker: Christina Warren	none	jump
11/14	Jobs and Automation and Labor	link	jump
11/21	Education (Canceled)	[link]	jump
11/28	Guest Speaker: James Allworth	[link]	jump

Readings

Readings are "required", "recommended", or "extra". Required readings should be done before class for the discussion to make sense. Recommended readings will be used as sources in lecture, but we won't assume you've read them.

More information about the assignments, including the essays, can be found on the assignments page.

11/28 Lecture 12: James Allworth

Survey: this survey

• Required Reading: An excerpt from the book published in HBR
• Optional Reading/Listening: James cohosts a podcast Exponent with Ben Thompson where they talk about tech issues. There's two interesting episodes which have some background on how James thinks about hard issues in tech: Facebook, Twitter, and Trump; Big Tech, Antitrust, and Democracy. Both these are a little old, but a good snapshot of ideas and challenges which are still relevant today. (Apparently Elon Musk is allowing Trump back on Twitter....)
• Also you might want to check out this piece about Cloudflare blocking the the site KiwiFarms.

11/21 Lecture (canceled): Education

Slides [draft]: link

• Recommended: Smith, "The Machines Are Learning, and So Are the Students"
• Recommended: Upson, "How an Epic Series of Tech Errors Hobbled Miami's Schools"
• Extra: Reich "Ed-Tech Mania Is Back", requires registering free chronicle.com account.
• Extra: Carey, "An Online Education Breakthrough? A Master's Degree for a Mere $7,000"
• Extra: Khan, "I Started Khan Academy. We Can Still Avoid an Education Catastrophe."

11/14 Lecture 11: Jobs and Automation and Labor

This lecture is optional, meaning the survey and attendance are both counted as extra credit.

Slides: link

Fill out this survey by Sunday 11/13 at 11:59 PM. Reminder: This is a soft deadline.

1) Planned UAW Strike (UAW 5810, UAW 2865, SRU-UAW) Suggested Readings:

• UC Berkeley (CalNet required), UAW Strike Information
• University of California, Information about UC-UAW negotiations and a UAW strike
• Fair UC Now, Bargaining Terms
• Fair UC Now, Strike FAQ
• UAW Berkeley Staffing Side Letter for EECS, Data Science, and Statistics

2) Jobs/Automation Readings:

• Required: Williams, Alex, "Will Robots Take Our Children's Jobs?"
• Required: McKinsey Global Institute, "Harnessing automation for a future that works"
• Recommended: Kim, Tammy, "The Gig Economy is Coming for Your Job"
• Extra: Chokshi, "What if You Had a Four-Day Week? Why Don't You?"
• Extra: Boudette, "Despite High Hopes, Self-Driving Cars Are 'Way in the Future'"
• Extra: Realtime Inequality

11/7 Lecture 10: Christina Warren: Twitter, AI Tools, Q&A

Fill out this survey by Sunday 11/6 at 11:59 PM.

• Required: Nilay Patel, "Welcome to Hell, Elon"
• Required: Michael Weinberg, "I’m Not Sure That (If?) GitHub Copilot is a Problem"
• Recommended: Christina Warren, Brianna Wu, Simone De Rochefort: "#410: Twitter Is Over" (Podcast)
• Optional: Andy Baio, "Invasive Diffusion: How one unwilling illustrator found herself turned into an AI model"

10/31 Lecture 9: The Optimization Mindset, Tech Policy, Big Tech

Slides: link

Fill out this survey by Sunday 10/30 at 11:59 PM.

• Required: Sahami, Weinstein, Reich, "System Error, Chapter 8: Can Democracies Rise to the Challenge?"
• Recommended: Sahami, Weinstein, Reich, "System Error, Chapter 1: The Imperfections of the Optimization Mindset"

10/24 Lecture 8: Algorithmic Bias and Fairness

Slides: link

Fill out this survey by Sunday 10/23 at 11:59 PM.

• Highly suggested: Angwin, Julia, "Make Algorithms Accountable"
• Highly Suggested: Davis, Pierson, Feller, Goel (from last time).
• Recommended: Tufekci, Zeynep, "Machine intelligence makes human morals more important" (video)
• Optional: Google Research, "Attacking discrimination with smarter machine learning"

10/17 Lecture 7: Software Risks

Slides: link

Fill out this survey by Sunday 10/16 at 11:59 PM.

• Highly suggested: Fabio, "Killed by a Machine: The Therac-25"
• Highly suggested: Davies, Pierson, Feller, Goel, "A computer program used for bail and sentencing decisions was labeled biased against blacks. It's actually not that clear."
• Recommended: Travis, "How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer"
• Recommended: Branam, "Learning from Engineering Failures"

10/10 Lecture 6: Framing Society and Identity

Slides: link

Fill out Weekly Survey Lecture 06 by Sunday 10/09 at 11:59 PM.

• Required: Count your score on the "Invisible EECS Knapsack" and submit it to the Weekly Survey form.
• Required: Sourour, Bill, "The code I'm stil ashamed of" (trigger warning: suicide)
• Extra: Benjamin, Ruha, "The New Jim Code"

10/03 Lecture 5: Memes and Viral Content

Slides: link

Fill out Weekly Survey Lecture 05 by Sunday 10/02 at 11:59 PM.

• Recommended: Chayka, Kyle, "Ivermectin, the Crate Challenge, and the Danger of Runaway Memes"
• Recommended: "Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds" (trigger warning: suicide)
• Extra: CGP Gray, "This Video Will Make You Angry"
• Extra: Heath, Bell, Sternberg, "Emotional selection in memes: the case of urban legends" (requires Berkeley VPN)

9/26 Lecture 4: Government Censorship and Surveillance

No Survey This Week

U.S. Tech Companies and Chinese Censorship and Surveillance:

• Recommended: Gallagher, "I Used to Work for Google. I Am a Conscientious Objector."
• Recommended: BBC News, "Microsoft says error caused 'Tank Man' Bing censorship" (the embedded video up top is also interesting)
• Extra: Mozur, Kessel, Chan, "Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State"
• Extra: Mozur, Buckley "How China Uses High-Tech Surveillance to Subdue Minorities"

Historical Censorship and Surveillance in the U.S.:

• Extra: Kayyali, "FBI's "Suicide Letter" to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Dangers of Unchecked Surveillance"
• Extra: Gage, "What an Uncensored Letter to M.L.K. Reveals"

9/19 Lecture 3: Privacy

Slides: link

Please fill out Weekly Survey 2 by Monday 9/19 at 12:00 PM (noon).

Readings:

• Required 1: Theilman, The Guardian: "Apple v the FBI: what's the beef, how did we get here and what's at stake?"
• Recommended Follow Up: Clark, The Verge: "Here’s how the FBI managed to get into the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone"
• Recommended: MacMillan, Anderson, "Student tracking, secret scores: How college admissions offices rank prospects before they apply"
• Extra 1: Rachels, "Why Privacy Is Important"

• Extra 2: Hill, NYT "A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor. Google Flagged Him as a Criminal."

  • This was referenced durning week 1. It references child abuse.

9/12 Lecture 2: Social Connection and Time Well-Spent

Slides: link

Please fill out the welcome form and Weekly Survey 1 by Sunday 09/11 11:59pm PT.

Readings:

• Required: Pew Research Center, "Social Media Use in 2021"
• Recommended 1: New York Times Opinion, "This Is Our Chance to Pull Teenagers Out of the Smartphone Trap"
• Recommended 2: BBC, "The people deciding to ditch their smartphones"
• Recommended 3: NPR, "New Research Casts Doubt On Connection Between Smartphone Use And Teen Mental Health"
• Extra 1: "How TikTok Holds Our Attention"
• Extra 2: "Tristan Harris: How better tech could protect us from distraction"
• Extra: "Lil B - The Age Of Information MUSIC VIDEO DIRECTED BY LIL B"

8/29 Lecture 1: Free Speech

Please fill out the welcome form before class by Monday 08/29 noon PT.

Interested in CS H195? Check out the discussion page and drop by the first open discussion session Wednesday, 09/07, 5-6pm! Course applications due Wednesday 09/07 11:59pm PT.

No readings.