Current Event - 10/29/2015

My current event this week relates to a pretty general ethical question that many of us who are aiming for a career in software development will run into in some form or another. Specifically, it relates to the decision-making that will inevitably be programmed into varying types of gadgets in the near future. This article from MIT Technology Review looks at the dilemma that self-driving cars present when a vehicular accident is inevitable. I find myself wondering if one of the premises of the article, namely that an accident may be unavoidable, will ever truly be met, but the issue must still be addressed.

I don't know if there's a widely accepted inclination with regard to issues like programming a car to favor killing the driver over a bystander, but I would think that there are a lot of things that we could do to reduce the likelihood of such a situation ever occurring to the lowest possible level, such as making the car favor caution in a lot of situations. Of course, we then have to deal with a society where our self-driving cars are all too polite and never get anywhere, but I think that we'd rather have some inefficiency over death.

As we automate our environment more and more and endow objects around us with the measure of intelligence that is possible for us to give them, issues like this will continue to arise and I think ethics will play an increasing role in technology as technology becomes a more integral part of our existence. Food for thought.

Study Journal 3

This is only my second study journal because I missed Study Journal 2, but this one's a big one, so that's okay. Here goes!

October 6:

• Revolution OS - This was an interesting film about the emergence of the Free Software movement and all that came with it. It's definitely worth watching if you're interested in the evolution of operating systems, software development and open source software.
• Richard Stallman is an interesting fellow. Granted, his start in software came at a much different time than we live in now, but I was a little surprised to find that he was not a proponent of security, even if he was such an advocate for free software. He was more or less totally against the use of passwords to secure computers
• I had to chuckle a little bit when Steve Ballmer mentioned in the film that the culture of the day was focused on lines of code as a metric. Today (and I'm a huge fan of this) we try to make our code as compact and simple as possible. 

October 8:

• There are four basic types of Intellectual Property: Trade secrets, patents, copyrights and trademarks
• Patent trolls are the most ridiculous thing on the planet. That's a bit of an overstatement, but it seems like people have to have something better to do with their time than collect a bunch of patents for things they had nothing to do with inventing and then go chasing after companies that may have violated them. I suppose they're a bit like ambulance chasers.
• Apparently, it takes three years to receive a patent on something. It seems to me that they ought to expand the patent office significantly so that they can get rid of the huge backlog. In the end, it's probably worth the hassle to have the patent protection on your invention, but three years sounds like a pain to me.

October 13:

• I was a bit blown away to find out that it's not at all uncommon for companies to lay claim to any intellectual property you generate while in their employment. Granted, if you invent something that's right in line with what you do for work, you probably drew a great deal of inspiration from your environment at work, which they can definitely claim, but I wasn't aware that Microsoft could lay claim to your invention of an ice cream machine if you invented it while working for them and they so chose.
• General apathy on the topic of security is amazing to me. I can totally understand it from the point of view of someone who is not technically inclined and doesn't have a whole lot of sensitive information around anyway, but in the professional community, I would think people would be a little more convinced of the need for good security around technology.
• On the topic of apathy, it's definitely an ethical concern as well. Professor Dougal talked about how few people would actually come to the aid of someone they saw injured,simply out of apathy. It's a curse of this generation, for sure. Technology makes so many great things possible, but it also makes it possible for a lot of people to do nothing and care about nothing. Responsibilities help us determine what we really believe and think.

October 15:

• How many good things have horrible origins? Professor Dougal mentioned the Nazi medical experimentation primarily performed at the hands of Josef Mengele during World War II. The atomic bomb was also mentioned. Technology works miracles in a lot of ways, but it's really a shame that so many great inventions are only developed through military origins and applications.
• "Just enough security that you have to be deliberate" - Professor Dougal used this phrase in talking about how they used to have massive locks on a simple burlap bag for holding tithing donations that could easily be cut and the donations stolen. I really liked the phrase. In an ideal world, that level of security would be enough to protect anything from anyone because people would be honorable enough not to step over such boundaries.
• Doing ultimately shows what we believe. This goes back to the conversations we had about Aristotle's ethics at the beginning of the semester. Few things are more annoying to me than people who offer a lot of lip service and not much else. So many people say so many things and do the complete opposite or nothing at all. I think we all have some great person in mind who we want to be, but we'll only ever become that person if we actually believe and do the things that make us that person. I can say that I believe it's wrong to pirate media all I want, but if I'm constantly getting my movies and games for free through a torrenting site, I obviously don't believe that and I'm probably just saying I do because it's what I think people want me to believe. 

October 20:

• What is theft? Professor Dougal's brother, an ex-Special Agent of the FBI talked to us about economic espionage among other things. If all I'm doing is copying an idea, is it really theft? Certainly! I didn't do the work to come up with the idea, so it's not mine.
• What is a spy? Brother Dougal gave this as a definition: someone who betrays a trust. I'd never thought of it that way, but I think it's an apt description. No spy has ever gained information to pass along without being granted some level of trust by those from whom he steals. Even if it's computer hacking, a spy breaks the trust that he will not cross security barriers that he shouldn't.
• What are laws based on? Laws are entirely based on societal norms and change when those norms change. What is abhorred and illegal in one society may be common practice and totally normal in another. I think a classic example of this is a comparison of the Nephites and Lamanites in the Book of Mormon. The Lamanites didn't have nearly the same beliefs as the Nephites and their cultures were drastically different.

October 22:

• We work with the box - I liked Professor Dougal's metaphor about the box. As software people, we work with how the box works, what it can hold and what not, but it's easy to get caught up designing the box and forget about everything else. We need to make sure that the box isn't all we study.
• Communism is socialism fully realized. We had an interesting discussion about a talk from President Ezra Taft Benson regarding how communism is antithetical to the teachings of the gospel. The motivation for communism and socialism can be an admirable one if driven by the need to make sure everyone is taken care of, but the execution of the idea can easily lead to the loss of personal freedoms.
• Technology creates opportunities in a lot of ways. It makes things possible that couldn't even be considered before. Where it eliminates jobs through obsolescence of the object of the job, it creates new jobs in a newly unlocked field. I think new technology is to be wholeheartedly embraced in any and every manner that can lead us forward, so long as we don't completely lose our way.

Current Event - 10/8/2015

Today's class discussion was about intellectual property as it relates to software. Pretty much anyone who delves into software development is going to be associated with a patent at one time or another, even if it's only that their work is part of a larger product that will be patented by the corporation they work for. In light of that, I looked around for one of the latest articles regarding the patent wars that have been raging between the technology giants recently. I was pleased to find this article about the pending resolution of the patent feud between Microsoft and Google. It appears that the two have decided to stop suing each other and instead start licensing their patents to the other. 

I say that I'm pleased to find this article because I think litigation over who gets control over what technology is important, but I think the degree to which it has been pursued in recent years is just silly. If they quit fighting and just license the patents from the owner instead, everyone gets a piece of the pie and everyone is (relatively) happy. Not that I don't understand that each company would prefer to own the patents they use and not have to license them, but I think their time and money are much better spent innovating and producing new patents rather than fighting over the old ones. However, I also realize that this is unlikely to cease to be an issue because there's a lot of money in owning all the patents. Let's just hope that it stays relatively low key, shall we?