STS.012/STS.008 Science in Action: Technologies and Controversies in Everyday Life
Author: Dwai Banerjee
Lecture Module: “Big Data and Personal Privacy”
Keywords: privacy; AI; surveillance; data ethics
Module Goals:
- To find overlaps and differences in the experience of students learning about their right to privacy
- To discuss whether they believe existing rights to be adequate
- To examine whether current ethical standards (such as those instituted by the GDPR) sufficiently protect their rights (as they exist or as they believe should exist).
17.46 U.S. National Security Policy
Authors: Erik Lin-Greenberg, Lily Tsai
Lecture Module: “Cyber Crisis Scenario”
Keywords: emerging technology and international security, the politics of cybersecurity, national security policy, the law of armed conflict/international law
Module Goals: A scenario-based end-of-semester exercise for an MIT undergraduate political science course, implemented over two 80 min classes. The scenario was intended to provide students with an opportunity to apply core class concepts, which included an understanding of the interagency process, the various actors involved in making and implementing national security policy, the law of armed conflict/international law, and the changing character of international crises.
MIT Case Studies in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing
Brief, specially commissioned and peer-reviewed cases intended to be effective for undergraduate instruction across a range of classes and fields of study.
Winter 2023
Emotional Attachment to AI Companions and European Law, by Claire Boine (University of Ottowa)
Keywords: AI law, AI companions, human-machine interactions, data privacy, consumer protection
The Right to Be an Exception to a Data-Driven Rule, by Sarah H. Cen and Manish Raghavan (MIT)
Keywords: data-driven decision-making, rights and duties, individualization, uncertainty, harm
Summer 2022
“Porsche Girl”: When a Dead Body Becomes a Meme, by Nadia de Vries (University of Amsterdam)
Keywords: digital death, bodies, memes, online abuse, Nikki Castouras
Patenting Bias: Algorithmic Race and Ethnicity Classifications, Proprietary Rights, and Public Data, by Tiffany Nichols (Harvard University)
Keywords: racial and ethnic classifications, algorithmic bias, patents, public data
Privacy and Paternalism: The Ethics of Student Data Collection, by Kathleen Creel (Northeastern University) and Tara Dixit (Chantilly High School, Virginia)
Keywords: user data privacy, student data, contextual integrity, educational technology, children’s rights, surveillance
Winter 2022
Differential Privacy and the 2020 US Census, by Simson Garfinkel (George Washington University)
Keywords: differential privacy, disclosure avoidance, statistical disclosure limitation, US Census Bureau
Protections for Human Subjects in Research: Old Models, New Needs?, by Laura Stark (Vanderbilt University)
Keywords: human-subjects research, informed consent, institutional review boards, big data
The Puzzle of the Missing Robots, by Suzanne Berger (MIT) and Benjamin Armstrong (MIT)
Keywords: robots, automation, manufacturing, workforce
Algorithmic Redistricting and Black Representation in US Elections, by Zachary Schutzman (MIT)
Keywords: redistricting, algorithms, race, politics, elections
Summer 2021
Wrestling with Killer Robots: The Benefits and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence for National Security, by Erik Lin-Greenberg
Keywords: autonomous weapons, killer robots, military ethics, modern warfare
Public Debate on Facial Recognition Technologies in China, by Tristan G. Brown, Alexander Statman, and Celine Sui
Keywords: facial recognition, Chinese law, social media
Winter 2021
The Case of the Nosy Neighbors, by Johanna Gunawan and Woodrow Hartzog (Northeastern University)
Keywords: user data privacy, technology in norm enforcement, facial recognition, mass surveillance, mass scraping of public data
