Social and ecological impact

Introduction

Any technological development, if at all successful, is bound to have a impact in society; sometimes the balance of power is shifted, sometimes industry is disrupted, and more often than not the environment is affected by the development, manufacture, or employment of a technology. Acute awareness of this possibility (or rather the inevitability) of such effects makes you better equipped to propose and evaluate novel computational approaches.

There is no new assessment in this module. The tools, techniques and concepts of this module contribute to successful completion of upcoming assessments and can also be leveraged in previous assessments that have not yet been turned in.

Learning outcomes

This module will help you do the following:

• Examine possible impacts of computational technology on the environment
• Examine possible impacts of computational technology on individuals
• Examine possible impacts of computational technology on society

Readings

• O'Neil: Weapons of Math Destruction, Crown, 2016.
• Cofone: The privacy fallacy — harm and power in the information economy, Cambridge University Press, 2024.
• Kalliola: Green code, Exove, 2023. (Free optional download)

In addition to the above texts, participants are encouraged to explore texts online on how technology has shaped society in the past and in the present — please share interesting findings with others in the MS Teams for the course.

Resources

• AIA