Impact of computing
Computing changes the world
- Computing affects almost every part of life: school, work, health, money, and friends.
- The same tool can bring benefits (good effects) and harms (bad effects).
- A good computer scientist thinks about both sides, not just the cool features.
One technology, two sides:
Social media
Benefit: stay in touch, share, learn
Harm: bullying, false news, less sleep
Benefits and harms together
- A benefit for one group can be a harm for another.
- Example: an app that suggests videos keeps you watching (benefit for the company) but can waste your time (harm for you).
- Always ask: who gains, who loses, and what could go wrong?
The digital divide
- The digital divide is the gap between people who have good access to computing and those who do not.
- Causes include money, where you live (no fast Internet), and not having training.
- This is unfair: people without access miss out on school, jobs, and information.
Bias in computing
- Bias means an unfair result that favors one group over another.
- Software learns from data. If the data is unfair or incomplete, the results can be unfair too.
- Example: a face tool trained mostly on one kind of face may work badly for other people.
Biased data -> biased results
Training data: mostly group A faces
Result: works well for A, poorly for B
Intellectual property and licensing
- Intellectual property (IP) is creative work people make: code, music, art, writing.
- A license is the rules for how others may use that work. Using work without permission can break the law.
- Open source software shares its code so others may read and reuse it; Creative Commons licenses let creators say "you may share this, with these conditions".
Privacy and PII
- PII means Personally Identifiable Information: data that points to a real person.
- Examples: full name, home address, phone number, ID number, exact location.
- Once data is online it is hard to take back, and apps may collect more than you expect. Share carefully.
Safe computing
- Use a strong, unique password for important accounts (long, mixed, not reused).
- Watch out for phishing: fake messages that trick you into giving passwords or money. Check the sender; do not click strange links.
- Keep software updated, and think before you post personal data.
Key words
- Digital divide: the gap in access to computing.
- Bias: an unfair result, often from unfair data.
- Intellectual property / license: who owns creative work and how it may be used.
- PII / privacy: personal data, and protecting it.
- Phishing: fake messages that try to steal your information.
Common mistakes
- Weigh both the benefits and the harms (bias, privacy, unequal access).
- The digital divide is the gap in access to technology.
Now you try
- These tasks turn the ideas above into code: PII, bias, and password safety.
- Press Check answer to test your code.
Difficulty 2/5 · 140 coins + a small bonus on first completion today
PII is data that points to a real person. You are given a record fields (a dict like {"name": ..., "color": ..., "phone": ...}) and a set pii_names of PII field names. Write count_pii(fields, pii_names) that returns how many of the record's keys are PII.
Click Run to see the output here.
Difficulty 2/5 · 140 coins + a small bonus on first completion today
Software can be biased if it works better for one group than another. Write accuracy_gap(correct_a, total_a, correct_b, total_b) that returns group A's accuracy minus group B's accuracy, as a decimal. Example: accuracy_gap(90, 100, 60, 100) is 0.3.
Click Run to see the output here.
Difficulty 2/5 · 140 coins + a small bonus on first completion today
A password is strong when it is at least 12 characters and is not in the list of common passwords. Write is_strong(password, common) returning True or False. Example: with common = ["password", "123456"], is_strong("correcthorsebattery", common) is True.
Click Run to see the output here.