On-Line Communities

1
On-Line Communities

• Webster's New World Dictionary of the American
  Language defines "community" as "people living in
  the same district, city, etc., under the same
  laws."
• In cyberspace, community can be described as
  synchronous on-line settings (White, 2002).
• LambdaMOO Community A rape in cyberspace.

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Table 11-1 Features of On-line Communities
Positive Features Negative Features
Empower individuals by giving them choices regarding community membership Can easily discourage face-to-face interaction between individuals
Enable people living in geographically remote locations to interact regularly as members of the same community Can facilitate anonymity, making it easier to perform morally objectionable acts that are not tolerated in physical communities
Tend to provide individuals with greater freedom Tend to increase social and political fragmentation
3
Democracy and the Internet

• Does the Internet facilitate democracy and
  democratic ideals?
• Should the Internet be used as a tool to promote
  democracy?

4
Sunsteins Argument for why the Internet does not
promote Deliberative Democracy

• Because individuals use filtering schemes that
  provide them with information that
• (a) reinforces ideas that they already hold and
• (b) screens out novel information and different
  points of view, and
• Because an increasing number of people get their
  information only from the Internet,
• The Internet will likely
• (c) insulate more and more people from exposure
  to new ideas as well as to ideas that may
  question or conflict with their own, and
• (d) lead to greater isolation and polarization
  among groups, and
• (e) encourage extremism and radicalism rather
  than fostering compromise and moderation, and
• (f) reduce the need for the traditional
  give-and-take process in resolving differences in
  a public forum.
  .
• Therefore, behavior facilitated by the Internet
  tends to undermine deliberative democracy and
  corresponding democratic ideals.

5
Grahams critique

• The Internet might, perhaps unwittingly,
  strengthen the "worst aspects" of democracy,
  because Internet technology facilitates
• (i) political and social fragmentation
• (ii) irrationality (i.e., irrational prejudice in
  "direct democracies")
• (iii) powerlessness (in "representative
  democracies").

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Table 11-2 Considerations for Using the Internet
to Promote Democracy
Advantages Disadvantages
Empowers individuals by giving them choices regarding on-line communities Increases social fragmentation and discourages rational debate
Promotes individual freedom and decision-making Increases levels of irrationality and prejudice (in direct democracies)
Gives individuals a voice in governance issues in cyberspace Increases levels of powerlessness for individuals (in representative democracies)
7
Virtual Reality

• Three different senses of virtual.
• Sometimes "virtual" is contrasted with "real," as
  in cases where virtual objects are distinguished
  from "real" objects.
• Other times, "virtual" is contrasted with the
  term "actual." For example, a person might say
  that she is "virtually finished" her project.
• A third use of "virtual" ca express a feeling
  that one has "as if" he or she were physically
  present in a situation.

8
Virtual Reality Technologies

• Brey (1999) defines virtual reality (VR)
  technology as a three-dimensional interactive
  computer-generated environment that incorporates
  a first-person perspective.
• Three important features in Brey's definition of
  VR technology are
• (1) interactivity
• (2) the use of three-dimensional graphics
• (3) a first-person perspective.

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Figure 11-1 Virtual Environments
Virtual Environment
On-line Communities
VR Technologies
VR games, VR applications/models, etc. (must
be three-dimensional graphical interfaces)
Electronic forums, MOOs, MUDs, etc. (can be
two-dimensional representations that are
text-based)
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Figure 11-2 Summary of Brey's Scheme for
Analyzing Ethical Issues in VR
Ethical Aspects of VR
Behavioral issues
Representational issues
of the non-virtual entities being depicted in VR
applications
in VR environments (Interactivity)
Example the LambdaMOO case
Misrepresentation
Biased Representation
Virtual entities fail to correspond accurately
to non-virtual entities represented (distortion
in representation).
Virtual entities are accurate in terms of
characteristics represented, but are presented in
a way that reflects a bias.
11
Personal Identity and Cybertechnology

• Van Gelder (1996) The strange case of the
  electronic lover.
• Turkle (1984) the computer as a medium of self
  discovery.
• Turkle (1995) MUDs, MUD-Selves, and
  Distributed Personal Identities.

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Self-Expression and Self- Discovery

• Turkle (1984) notes that (standalone computers)
  enabled people to try out
• new ways of expressing themselves
• new cognitive styles
• different methods of problem solving.
• Turkle (1995) argues that computers have since
  moved from being mere calculators to
  simulators.

13
MUD Sleves and Distributed Personal Identities

• MUDs (Multi-User Dimensions).
• Lambda MOO is a variation of MUD.
• In MUDs, people can express multiple identities
  a person can be
• ones actual self
• male, female young, old, etc.
• even a non-human such as a furry rabbit.

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MUD Selves (Continued)

• Turkle note that the self can be the sum of
  ones distributed presence.
• In Victor, Victoria (the physical world), one
  moved in and out of gender roles by stepping in
  and out of character.
• In MUDS, people have parallel lives
• Real Life or (RL) is just one window.

15
Our Sense of Self in the Cyber Era

• Three great eras or epochs
• 1. The Agricultural Age
• 2. The Industrial Age
• 3 The information age.
• What are the impacts for the Cyber era?

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Self in the Cyber era (continued)

• Williams (1997) considers the impacts of three
  important discoveries and describes their
  significance in the following way
• The first such milestone, a great (and
  greatly humbling) challenge to our sense of human
  beings as uniquely important, came when the
  Copernican revolution established that Earth, the
  human home, was not at the center of the
  universe. The second milestone was Charles
  Darwin's conclusion that emergence of Homo
  sapiens was...the result of evolution from lower
  species by the process of natural selection. The
  third milestone resulted from the work of Karl
  Marx and Sigmund Freud, which showed
  intellectual, social, and individual creativity
  to be the result of non-rational (unconscious)
  libidinal or economic forces not as has been
  believed, the products of the almost god-like
  powers of the human mind.

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Cyber-technology as a "Defining Technology"

• Bolter (in Turings Man, 1984) describes the
  Western Culture in terms of three periods
• (1) Platos Man
• (2) Descartess Man
• (3) Turings Man.
• Each is the result of what Bolter describes as a
  defining technology.

18
Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• The view that only humans are rational is
  currently challenged on two separate fronts
• 1. recent research in animal intelligence
  suggests that many primates, dolphins, and whales
  are capable of demonstrating skills we typically
  count as rational (while many humans are not, or
  are no longer able, to demonstrate those skills)
• 2. recent work in artificial intelligence (AI)
  and cognitive science has shown that certain
  forms of "rational activity" can also be
  attributed to computers.
• In fact, questions that have surfaced in AI
  research have already caused some philosophers
  and scientists to reconsider our definitions of
  notions such as rationality, intelligence,
  knowledge, and learning.

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Can Machines Think and are they Intelligent?

• 1950, Alan Turing posed a question that has come
  to be known as the Turing Test.
• HAL (2001 A Space Odyssey) seemed to exhibit
  some intelligence.
• Deep Blue defeated Gary Kasparov.

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Expanding the Sphere of Moral Obligation because
of AI

• Do we need to expand the sphere of moral
  obligation to include softbots and information
  entities?
• Can computers be morally responsible agents?

21
Should we Continue to Research in AI?

• John Weckert asks
• Can we, or do we want to, live with
  artificial intelligences? We can happily live
  with fish that swim better than we do, hawks that
  see and fly better, and so on, but do we want
  things that can reason better to be in a
  different and altogether more worrying
  category.What would such developments mean for
  our view of what it is to be human?

22
Nanotechnology

• Nanotechnology, a term coined by K. Eric Drexler
  in the 1980s.
• A is a branch of engineering dedicated to the
  development of extremely small electronic
  circuits and mechanical devices built at the
  molecular level of matter.
• Current microelectricomechanical systems (or
  MEMS), tiny devices such as sensors embedded in
  conductor chips used in airbag systems to detect
  collisions, are one step away from the molecular
  machines envisioned in nanotechnology.
• A primary goal of this technology is to provide
  us with tools to work at the molecular and atomic
  levels that are analogous to what we have at the
  macroworld level.
• Drexler (1991) believes that developments in this
  field will result in computers at the nano-scale,
  no bigger in size than bacteria, called
  nanocomputers.

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Nanotechnology (continued)

• To appreciate the scale of future nanocomputers,
  imagine a mechanical or electronic device whose
  dimensions are measured in nanometers (billionths
  of a meter, or units of 10-9 meter).
• Nanocomputers could have "mass storage devices
  that can store more than 100 billion bytes in a
  volume the size of a sugar cube.
• Merkle (2001) predicts that these nano-scale
  computers will be able to deliver a billion
  billion instructions per second a billion times
  faster than todays desktop computers.
• Although they are still in an early stage of
  research-and-development, some primitive
  nano-devices have already been tested.
• In 1989, physicists at the IBM Almaden Laboratory
  demonstrated the feasibility of development in
  nanotechnology by manipulating atoms to produce
  the IBM logo.

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Pros of Nanotechnology

• Nano-particles inserted into bodies could
  diagnose diseases and directly treat diseased
  cells.
• Doctors could use nanomachines (or nanites) to
  make microscopic repairs on areas of the body
  that are difficult to operate on with
  conventional surgical tools. (with nanotechnology
  tools, the life signs of a patient could be
  better monitored.
• With respect to the environment, nanites could be
  used to clean up toxic spills, as well as to
  eliminate other kinds of environmental hazards.
• Nanites could also dismantle or "disassemble"
  garbage at the molecular level and recycle it
  again at the molecular level via "nanite
  assemblers."

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Worries about Nanotechnology

• Since all matter (objects and organisms) could
  theoretically be disassembled and reassembled by
  nanite assemblers and disassemblers, what would
  happen if strict "limiting mechanisms" were not
  built into those nanites?
• If nanomachines were created to be
  self-replicating and if there was a problem with
  their limiting mechanisms, they could multiply
  endlessly like viruses.
• Nanite assemblers and disassemblers could be used
  to create weapons or that nanites themselves
  could be used as weapons. As Chen (2002) points
  out, guns, explosives, and electronic components
  of weapons could all be miniaturized.
• Privacy and freedom could be further eroded
  because governments, businesses, and ordinary
  people could use molecular sized microphones,
  cameras, and homing beacons to track and monitor
  people.
• People with microscopic implants would be able to
  be tracked using Global Positioning Systems
  (GPS), just as cars can be now.
• On the one hand, children could never be lost
  again on the other hand, we would likely have
  very little privacy given that our movements
  could be tracked so easily by others.

26
Ethical Aspects of Nanotechnology

• Already there are controversies about bionic chip
  implants made possible by nanotechnology.
• Weckert points out that while "conventional"
  implants in the form of devices designed to
  "correct" deficiencies have been around and used
  for some time, their purpose has been viewed as
  one of assisting patients in their goal of
  achieving "normal" states of vision, hearing,
  heartbeat, etc.
• These are described as therapeutic implants.
• Future chip plants, in the form of "enhancement
  implants" could be designed to make a normal
  person super-human.

27
Implants Involving Nanotechnology

• Some frame the controversy about implants in
  terms of an enhancement vs. therapy debate.
• Moor (2003) points out that this distinction
  might suggest the basis for a policy that would
  limit unnecessary implants.
• He also notes that because the human body has
  natural functions, some will argue that
  implanting chips in a body is acceptable as long
  as these implants maintain and restore the
  bodys natural functions.
• Although Moor does not argue for a policy along
  the lines of a therapeutic-enhancement
  distinction, he believes that many will find such
  a policy would appeal to many.

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Implants (Continued)

• According to Moor (2004)
• Pacemakers, defibulators, and bionic eyes that
  maintain and restore natural bodily functions are
  acceptable.
• But giving patients added arms or infrared vision
  would be prohibited.
• It would endorse the use of a chip that reduced
  dyslexia but would forbid the implanting of a
  deep blue chip for superior chess play.
• It would permit a chip implant to assist memory
  of Alsheimer patients but would not license
  implanting of a miniature digital camera that
  would record and playback what a person had just
  seen.

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Implants (Continued)

• Clear policies and laws will need to be framed
  needed, as more and more bionic parts become
  available.
• Some now worry that with bionic parts, humans and
  machines could soon begin to merge into cyborgs.
• Kurzweill (1999) has suggested that in the near
  future, the distinction between machines and
  humans may no longer be useful.
• Moor (2004) believes the question we must
  continually reevaluate is not whether we should
  become cyborgs, but rather what sort of cyborgs
  should we become.

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Implants (Continued)

• We need to assess some of the advantages and
  disadvantages of bionic implants of the future.
• Weckert (2002) invites us to consider the
  following question
• Do we want to be superhuman relative to our
  current abilities with implants that enhance our
  senses, our memories, and our reasoning ability?
  What would such implants do to our view of what
  it is to be human?

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Should Research in Nanotechnology Continue?

• Weizenbaum (1984) has argued that there are
  certain kinds of computer science research that
  should not be undertaken specifically, research
  that can easily be seen to have "irreversible and
  not entirely unforeseeable side effects.
• Joy (2000) has suggested that because
  developments in nanotechnology are threatening to
  make us an "endangered species," the only
  realistic alternative is to limit the development
  of that technology.
• Merkle (2001) disagrees with Joy, arguing that if
  research in nanotechnology is prohibited, or even
  restricted, it will be done underground.
• If that happens, Merkle worries that
  nanotechnology research would not be regulated by
  governments and social policies.

32
Should Research Continue in Nanotechnology?

• Weckert (2001) argues that, all things being
  equal, potential disadvantages that can result
  from research in a particular field are not in
  themselves sufficient grounds for halting
  research altogether.
• He suggests that there should be a presumption in
  favor of freedom in research.
• Weckert also argues, however, that it should be
  permissible to restrict or even forbid research
  where it can be clearly shown that harm is more
  likely than not to result from that research.

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Should Research Continue in Nanotechnology?

• Weckert offers us the following strategy
• If a prima facie case can be made that some
  research will likely cause harm...then the burden
  of proof should be on those who want the research
  carried out to show that it is safe.
• He goes on to say, however, that there should be
• ...a presumption in favour of freedom until such
  time a prima facie case is made that the research
  is dangerous. The burden of proof then shifts
  from those opposing the research to those
  supporting it. At that stage the research should
  not begin or be continued until a good case can
  be made that it is safe.

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Future Considerations Involving Nanotechnology

• A model similar to the one used in the Human
  Genome Project might be appropriate here.
• Before work was authorized to proceed on that
  project, certain ethical, legal, and social
  implications (ELSI) had to be addressed and
  formal ELSI guidelines established.
• Genomic research on that project was able to
  continue only after the ELSI requirements were in
  place.
• A similar set of ethical guidelines could help
  direct research in nanocomputing and could guide
  computer professionals currently engaged in
  research in that field.
• All of us as members of the human race would
  benefit from clear guidelines that address moral
  issues involving future developments in
  nanocomputing.