Topics, Readings, and Assignments

Date	Lecture Topic or Assignment	Links
01/21	Free Speech (∨)	Slides
01/28	Free Time and Attention (∨)	Slides
02/04	Privacy (∨)	Slides
02/11	Jobs and Automation (∨)	Slides
02/18	Memes (∨)	Slides
02/25	Politics and Media (∨)	Slides
03/04	No Class!	No Class!
03/11	Software Risks	Slides
03/16	Education	Slides
04/01	Government Censorship and Surveillance	Slides
04/08	Web 3.0 and Cryptocurrency	Slides
04/15	The Optimization Mindset, Tech Policy, Big Tech	Slides
04/22	Guest Speaker - Timnit Gebru	Slides

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.

04/29 Lecture 14: The Entwined Futures of Humans and Machines

Fill out this survey by 4/28.

• Recommended: "The Coevolution, Chapter 14"

04/22 Lecture 13: Guest Speaker - Timnit Gebru

Fill out this survey by 4/21.

• Recommended: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timnit_Gebru

04/15 Lecture 12: The Optimization Mindset, Tech Policy, and How Big Tech Can Do Better

Fill out this survey by 4/14.

• 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"

04/08 Lecture 11: Web 3.0 and Cryptocurrency

Fill out this survey at your convenience.

• Recommended: Upson, "The 10000 Faces that Launched an NFT Revolution"
• Recommended: Goode, Calore, "Web3 Is SiliconValley’s RosyVision of the Future" podcast or transcript
• Extra: Edelman, The Father of Web3 Wants You to Trust Less"
• Extra: Edelman, I Made a DAO, for Laughs. Want to Join?"

04/01 Lecture 10: Government Censorship and Surveillance

Fill out this survey by Thursday at 11:59 PM.

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"

03/18 Lecture 9: Education

Fill out this survey by Thursday at 11:59 PM.

• 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."

03/11 Lecture 8: Software Risks

Fill out this survey by Thursday at 11:59 PM.

• Recommended: Travis, "How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer"
• Recommended: Branam, "Learning from Engineering Failures"

02/18 Lecture 6: Politics and Media

Fill out this survey by Wednesday at 11:59 PM.

• Recommended: "Why I, as a black man, attend KKK rallies"
• Recommended: Mozur, "A Genocide Incited on Facebook, With Posts From Myanmar’s Military"
• Recommended: Barwick, Ryan, "Brands are still playing ball with clickbait ad sites, advertising’s roach that will survive the bomb"
• Extra: Smiley, "The College Kids Doing What Twitter Won't"
• Extra: Garrett, Resnick, "Resisting Political Fragmentation on the Internet"

02/18 Lecture 5: Memes

Fill out this survey by Thursday 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"
• Extra: CGP Gray, "This Video Will Make You Angry"
• Extra: Heath, Bell, Sternberg, "Emotional selection in memes: the case of urban legends" (required Berkeley VPN)
• Extra: Shullenberger, "Mimesis, Violence, and Facebook: Peter Thiel's French Connection" (very weird/questionable read, but interesting)

02/11 Lecture 4: Jobs and Automation

Fill out this survey by Wednesday at 11:59 PM.

• 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

02/04 Lecture 3: Privacy (Slides)

Guest speaker: Erica Portnoy, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Fill out this survey by Wednesday at 11:59 PM.

• Recommended 1: Recommended: MacMillan, Anderson, "Student tracking, secret scores: How college admissions offices rank prospects before they apply"
• Recommended 2: Thompson, Kehl, Bankston, "Doomed to Repeat History? Lessons from the Crypto Wars of the 1990s "
• Extra 1: Rachels, "Why Privacy Is Important"
• Extra 2: Supporting reading for our guest speaker's talk about encryption: Either one of Tiffany "The Great (fake) Child-Sex-Trafficking Epidemic" OR "You're Wrong About: Human Trafficking"

01/28 Lecture 2: Free Time and Attention (Slides)

Fill out this survey by Wednesday at 11:59 PM.

• Recommended 1: "This Is Our Chance to Pull Teenagers Out of the Smartphone Trap"
• Recommended 2: "The people deciding to ditch their smartphones"
• 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"

01/21 Lecture 1: Free Speech (Slides)

No readings.