The Impact of Technology in the Changing World PDF

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Chapter 1 The Impact of Technology in the Changing World

Part 1 Technology in Society Technology in a Global Society

Impact of Tools of Modern Technology Social Media Tools Social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram that enable people to connect and exchange ideas. These same tools are also bringing together people facing similar problems to fight for social change.

Twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter was used to galvanize a movement to protest the use of excessive and even deadly force against African Americans by law enforcement personnel in the United States. Videos streamed live over Facebook from cell phones, and released video captured from officers’ body cameras went viral, highlighting the abuses. In this way, technology brought to light an important social issue and was a key means for fostering national discussion.

Social media tools are also providing a level of instant connection and information distribution that is reshaping the world—both positively and negatively. Although social media has brought important issues to light, as more people get the majority of their news from unsubstantiated, incomplete reports on social media, there can be negative consequences, too.

Crisis-Mapping Tools Ushahidi is a crisis-mapping tool that collects information from e-mails, text messages, blog posts, and Twitter tweets and then maps them, instantly making the information publicly available. The developers then made Ushahidi a free platform anyone in the world can use.. It has since been used in several international disasters. When a tsunami brought Japan to the brink of a nuclear catastrophe, Ushahidi let anyone with a mobile phone find locations with clean water and food. It has been used to coordinate the antiapartheid movement in Palestine and to raise awareness about violence against women and children in India.

Global Issues Health Care With newer scientific visualization tools, scientists are developing antibodies for flu viruses and even HIV, viruses that are difficult to target because they continually change shape. Computationally intense modeling software is helping researchers increase the pace of vaccine production, saving lives.

Researchers now know that even without an actual concussion, athletes can sustain serious damage from repeated impacts of their brain against the skull. Many college teams now use helmets with embedded sensors that can report the precise location and force of an impact to the head, providing team physicians access to important information. Using computer simulation and collecting impact data from sensors in current football helmets, startup company VICIS has been able to design an impactreducing football helmet.

The Environment Smart Internet-connected water sprinklers are another technology that is saving water in California and other dry areas of the country. The sprinkler system checks the weather forecasts so it won’t use water when rain is coming the next day. It can adjust the watering schedule based on the season and can adjust the times of watering to encourage root growth. The system is showing a 30% reduction in water usage.

The Digital Divide There is a great gap in the levels of Internet access and the availability of technical tools in different regions of the world. The term coined for this difference in ease of access to technology is the digital divide. One danger of a digital divide is that it prevents us from using all the minds on the planet to solve the planet’s problems.

The Next Einstein Initiative (NEI) is a plan to focus resources on the talented mathematical minds of Africa. By expanding the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) across the continent, the future of Africa can be profoundly changed.

Technology Connects Us with Others

Technology Impacts How and Why We Connect and Collaborate Collaborating for the Benefit of Others As more and more web applications began to appear that allowed each individual to become a “creator” of the web, a new kind of Internet came into being. It was nicknamed Web 2.0, and it had a set of features and functionality that allowed users to contribute content easily and to be easily connected to each other.

The term cognitive surplus was coined to reflect the combination of leisure time and the tools to be creative. The availability of media tools and the easy connectivity of Web 2.0, along with generosity and a need to share, enable projects like Ushahidi and the Witness Project to emerge.

Connecting Through Business One of the most profound ways we can connect with each other is to support other people’s dreams. Kickstarter helps us connect in this way by allowing people to post their ideas for community projects, games, and inventions and to ask for funding directly. Donors are given rewards for different levels of pledges, such as a signed edition of a book or a special color of a product. This style of generating capital to start a business is known as crowdfunding, asking for small donations from a large number of people, often using the Internet.

Technology Impacts How We Consume Marketing Marketing strategies are counting on the fact that most people have a cell phone with a camera and Internet access. Quick response (QR) codes like the one shown here let any piece of print host a direct link to online information and video content. Marketers also have to be aware of the phenomenon of crowdsourcing—checking in with the voice of the crowd.

Consumers are using apps like ScanLife to check people’s verdicts on the quality of items. Forward-thinking companies are using this input to improve their products and services. AT&T, for example, has an app called Mark the Spot that lets customers report locations of dropped calls to help the company improve coverage.

Access Versus Ownership Items like cars and bikes can become “subscriptions” instead of large one-time purchases.

Citi Bike is catching on in many U.S. cities as a convenient and eco-friendly way to get around a metropolitan area. Collaborative consumption implies that we are joining together as a group to use a specific product more efficiently. We are so constantly connected with each other that we have again found the power of community. There are increasing opportunities to redistribute the things we have purchased and to share the services a product provides instead of owning it outright. Add in the pressure of mounting environmental concerns and global financial pressures, and we are migrating toward collaborative consumption

The Importance of Computer Literacy

Computer Literacy Computer literacy means understand the capabilities and limitations of computers and you know how to use them safely and efficiently.

Avoiding hackers and viruses Both can threaten a computer's security. Being aware of how hackers and viruses operate and knowing the damage they can do to your computer can help you avoid falling prey to them.

Protecting your privacy You’ve probably heard of identity theft—you see and hear news stories all the time about people whose “identities” are stolen and whose credit ratings are ruined by “identity thieves.” But do you know how to protect yourself from identity theft when you’re online?

Understanding the real risks Being able to separate the real privacy and security risks from things you don’t have to worry about. For example, do you know what a cookie is? Do you know whether it poses a privacy risk for you when you’re on the Internet? What about a firewall? Do you know how to configure it for your needs?

Using the web wisely People who are computer literate know how to find the information they want effectively. They also know how to use the web to work well with others.

Avoiding online annoyances If you have an e-mail account, chances are you've received electronic junk mail, or spam. How can you avoid spam? What about adware and spyware—do you know what they are? Do you know the difference between those and viruses, worms, and Trojan horses? Do you know which software programs you should install on your computer to avoid online annoyances?

Being able to maintain, upgrade, and troubleshoot your computer Learning how to care for and maintain your computer and knowing how to diagnose and fix certain problems can save you a lot of time and hassle. Do you know how to upgrade your computer if you want more memory, for example? Do you know which software and computer settings can keep your computer in top shape?

Keeping up to date becoming computer literate means knowing which technologies are on the horizon and how to integrate them into your own life.

Part 2 Emerging Technologies and Ethical Computing Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) focuses on creating computer systems that have an ability to perform tasks associated with human intelligence. Let’s explore in detail what AI is and how it impacts you every day.

Artificial Intelligence Basics

What Exactly is Intelligence? Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Sociologists point to characteristics that make human beings intelligent, such as learning from experiences, reasoning, problem solving, perception, and using language. What separates us from other animals is the ability to combine behaviors as opposed to demonstrating one specific rote behavior.

What is Artificial Intelligence? Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that focuses on creating computer systems or computer-controlled machines (including robots) able to perform tasks that are usually associated with human intelligence and that are (or were) generally performed by humans. By this definition, any computer program (or computercontrolled device) that accomplishes something normally thought of as intelligence by humans would be considered AI.

Do Computers “Think” Like Human Beings? In the 1950s, at the dawn of AI research, the goal was to create a machine that could think like a human. Early examples included expert systems that mimicked doctors in diagnosing illnesses. But this goal has shifted somewhat toward machines that generate intelligent output but that do not necessarily mimic the human thought process.

Book recommendation by Librarian and Amazon AI. The Amazon recommendation engine doesn’t mimic a human librarian’s thought process but rather analyzes vast amounts of data about you and other shoppers to make its recommendations. It provides intelligent results, but it does not arrive at those results the same way a human would.

Therefore, systems that display artificial intelligence do not have to arrive at their answers in the same way humans do.

What is the Focus of Current AI Research? Today, AI researchers are looking to develop systems inspired by how humans think. IBM Watson developers noticed that people don’t need hard and fast rules to form conclusions. Humans can assemble sets of evidence and then draw reasonably accurate conclusions. For Watson to answer a Jeopardy! question, a different approach was used. It examines thousands of pieces of text about a subject and then develops its own level of confidence in its answer. Watson does not think precisely like a human but still generates intelligent answers.

What are the Main Areas of Research for AI? 1. Natural language processing (NLP): NLP works to develop AI systems that understand written and spoken words and can interact with humans using language.

2. Perception: AI systems have senses just as we do. AI systems use sonar, accelerometers, infrared, magnetic, and other electronic sensors to gather data.

3. Knowledge representation: Knowledge representation involves encoding information about the world into formats that the AI system can understand.

Humans possess a vast collection of general knowledge based on their experiences in the world. AI systems need to build knowledge bases to solve problems. 4. Planning: AI systems need to set goals and then achieve them. An AI system might need to plan how to move a blue block out of the way to reach a red one or how to rotate a block as it moves to fit through a narrow opening.

5. Problem solving: Human beings tend to make intuitive judgments when solving a problem rather than performing a step-by-step analysis. AI programming combines a rules-based approach along with trying to make judgments with incomplete information.

6. Learning: Like humans, AI algorithms improve through experience. Supervised learning is used when the system can be trained with a huge number of examples. When you teach Siri to recognize your voice by reading to it, you’re using supervised learning. Unsupervised learning is when a system can look at data on its own and build rules for deciding what it is seeing.

An project in which several of these factors need to be researched are self-driving (autonomous) cars. The car must have computer vision—the ability to interpret visual information the ways humans do. The AI system needs to be able to tell the difference between a tree and a pedestrian, but it also needs to know many things about each object. Is the tree going to run into the path of the car? The car must scan the scene with sensors, recognize objects, consult a knowledge base to begin to plan, and then execute the plan.

Artificial Neural Networks Expert systems are computer programs that try to mimic the experience of human experts such as doctors or lawyers, were among the first attempts at producing AI. Rules-based systems are software that asks questions and responds based on preprogrammed algorithms they were the first expert systems designed. These systems asked questions (“Do you have a fever?”) and initiated other questions or actions based

on the answers (“How long have you had a fever?”) and worked adequately for some expert systems. But just a list of rules was not enough to handle more difficult tasks. Human beings learn from a bottom-up approach—that is, learning from examples rather than going through rote rules. To create AI systems using a bottom-up approach, artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been developed. ANNs are constructed based on the structure of the human brain, using loosely connected artificial neurons. When signals (information) are received in sufficient strength, a neuron is activated and the signal travels to other neurons connected to it. Unlike the human brain, the signals and the states of artificial neurons are represented by numbers between 0 and 1. Many modern ANNs feature different layers of neurons that allow for expressing various degrees of complexity rather than just pure Boolean states (like “on” or “off”). ANNs have allowed researchers to tackle complex problems such as speech recognition.

Big Data Big data describes the vast amounts of both structured and unstructured data that are generated daily.

Cloud Computing The availability of cloud computing, accessing computing resources as needed through the Internet, has made access to stored data more achievable in a mobile environment.

Advances in Machine Learning Machine learning (ML) is a type of AI that doesn’t need to be specifically programmed but rather can learn from exposure to, and analysis of, data. ML analyzes patterns in data, then uses the patterns to draw conclusions and adjust the actions of the AI system

accordingly. By learning, the AI system can adapt itself and become constantly better at its task. Example: The more you use Alexa, the better it gets at providing you with relevant information because it remembers what you previously asked it and utilizes that information going forward.

Deep learning (DL) is a subset of the ML field that describes systems capable of learning from their mistakes (just as humans do). DL systems therefore improve their accuracy going forward.

Example: If an AI system is being used to identify objects in pictures, it might misidentify a Vespa motor scooter as a Honda motorcycle, based on the fact that it has two wheels and holds one or two riders. A DL system would, after being told of the misidentification, learn to use other attributes (such as the unique shape of the body) for distinguishing a Vespa from a motorcycle.

Working with Artificial Intelligence and Other Information Information technology (IT) is a field of study focused on the management and processing of information and the automatic retrieval of information. IT careers include working with computers, telecommunications, and software deployment.

Technology and Career Opportunities Retail AI systems deployed in the retail sector are responsible for managing big data and performing data mining analysis for managers. For example, retailers often study the data gathered from register terminals to determine which products are selling on a given day and in a specific location. In addition to using inventory control systems, which help managers figure out how much merchandise they need to order to replace stock that is sold, managers can use mined data to determine that if they want a certain product to sell well, they must lower its price. Such data mining (the practice of examining large pre-existing databases in order to generate new information) thus allows retailers to respond to consumer buying patterns.

Recommendation engines are AI systems that help people discover things they may like but are unlikely to discover on their own. The secret behind recommendation engines is crunching massive amounts of data effectively—therefore, without big data and data mining, recommendation engines wouldn’t exist.

Banking and Personal Finance Credit card processors and banks use AI systems to analyze huge volumes of transaction data to spot fraud. Banks use software to assess the risk of extending credit to customers by analyzing spending patterns, credit scores and debt repayment. The same software also helps determine what interest rates and terms to offer on loans. Robo advisors, AI powered software that offers investment advice and manages client’s portfolios is available at many large brokerage firms.

Transportation Industries Autopilots run by AI have been installed on commercial airliners for decades. Autonomous (self-driving) vehicles should soon be available commercially on a wide scale.

Robots and Embodied Agents Many robots are deployed in industrial settings doing hazardous, repetitive, or boring tasks previously performed by humans. The difficult challenges with robots are making ones that are as versatile as humans when it comes to manual dexterity and mobility. This has led to designs that mimic how humans walk and grasp objects, which is also leading to robots that look and act like human beings or embodied agents. Making robots that resemble humans creates many ethical dilemmas, such as whether they need to act exactly like human beings and be programmed to behave ethically. So will we all eventually be replaced by robots? That is highly unlikely. There are many jobs in which human empathy and understanding are highly valued, such as those in medicine, education, and counseling.

Education Intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) are also appearing more widely in classrooms and courseware. IPAs can be created to assist students with designing, updating, and monitoring progress in their individualized learning plans (ILPs). This frees up teachers to work actively with students instead of getting bogged down with paperwork.

Example: Pearson has now entered a partnership with IBM to embed its Watson technology directly into Pearson courseware as an IPA. The Watson AI will learn how students are interacting with the courseware, track the pace of their learning, and enable the students to ask questions as they study. Watson will learn to provide better hint...