41–50 of 64 posts
I see that the humanities are continuing with their unexamined sense of entitlement to colonize other disciplines. This obsession with teaching (tech) workers ethics is a bourgeois pastoral fantasy. Someone needs to read some Foucault.
Shouldn't engineers who design social media algorithms have some basic knowledge of social dynamics and psychology?
Maybe physics belongs there too. I mean hey, physicists created the atom bomb.
That is not an endorsement of the authors proposal however. I would like to see it go the other way: treat it more like an engineering discipline and as part of that students would be required to attend the engineer ethics course that (almost) all engineering curriculums have.
But even admittedly that's not seeing the forest for the trees. The questionable systems that are built that are the result of many people working willingly together across a variety of disciplines (to the author's suggestion even). I'm not so sure making computing more multi-disciplinary is the right answer because in fact and in practice it's already that way.
The claim that computing is a social science because it has big effect on society is simply bollocks (This was explicitly claimed in the article, heck it had a subtitle "Why Computing Is a Social Science").
The effects of computing to society definitely is social science. But social sciences have exactly zero to offer on how to, as an example, define an upper bound for certain algorithm.
Just as physics has massive impact on the world the actual act of doing physics had nothing to do with social sciences. How on earth does social sciences help me to solve some particularily nasty partial differential equation? How the results are used are yet again part of social sciences as that talks about what happens to society, but the actual physics is completely out of it.
And as I said at the start, the track record of Social Sciences is not too good. I'm quite doubtful they can even say anything valid on the actual matters that fall under it.
Translation: 'We are horrified that Computer Science students - some of whom might go on to be the next tech billionaires - are managing to get through university without being completely brainwashed by leftist demoralisation!'
Sort of, I guess, if you squint. It's more about recognizing that computing now controls a great deal of power and wanting a large slice of that power.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't you think that, even from a strictly scientific perspective, more exchange of knowledge between computer science and social sciences would be good? Isn't it a shame that, for example, social media platforms don't benefit from the decades of research in social science to create a platform that's more beneficial for society? They hit roadblocks and cause problems which could have been easily prevented with this k…
On the recommendations: 1. The courses taught are very low level, below the level of building platforms. There really isn't a social science perspective to algos, OS, CPU arch. 2. This is already the case, 50% of classes must be from outside the department with more rules about what is required 3. This is already the case The author seems misinformed about the nature of CS programs and how departments already work. M…
Sadly, I think you're right. Not sure if it's an attempt to remain relevant or if the group itself is just waning, but the quality over the past number of years has diminished. It's like they're now just trying to meet minimum word requirements.
Classic hardcore CS, where people make distributed databases, new algorithms, and robot control systems, worry about proof of correctness, and study automata theory, is part of mathematics.
Machine learning is a branch of statistics.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're joking right? You're proving the article's point. The social sciences have informed policymakers for decades. The US was founded by social scientists (as TFA defines them, the social sciences include philosophy and so on).
Isn't that more worthy of damnation than praise? Superpredator broken windows, and all other sorts of convenient bullshit. Now policymakers are all about very selective hearing for demagoguery to be fair. We know this well enough because the absolute dumbasses still think cryptography backdoors are a good idea in spite of every credible expert screaming at them for decades "No you fucking morons! It would weaken our…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My, admittedly limited, understanding of current social science theory seems to claim more and more that boundaries of race, class, gender etc are real boundaries that preclude identification and understanding. I identify with men, because I am a man, I can't possibly understand a woman's point of view for the same reason. We are encouraged to believe in privileged positions where knowledge is spesific to this positi…
You seem to be thinking of gender studies? I don't know much about that, especially in the US. It may be right to criticize that field and its methodology. Social science, however, also includes fields like psychology, history and law, all of which I assume you'd agree are hugely important for society. Also, as I've mentioned in another comment, the article is not advocating for computer science and social sciences t…
What would be the cost of from moving CS away from its current home?
Translation: 'We are horrified that Computer Science students - some of whom might go on to be the next tech billionaires - are managing to get through university without being completely brainwashed by leftist demoralisation!'
Don't you think that, even from a strictly scientific perspective, more exchange of knowledge between computer science and social sciences would be good? Isn't it a shame that, for example, social media platforms don't benefit from the decades of research in social science to create a platform that's more beneficial for society? They hit roadblocks and cause problems which could have been easily prevented with this k…
Post 1 example of that.