Courses Wayne State University College of Urban, Labor, and Metropolitan Affairs (CULMA) Department of Interdisciplinary Studies (IS) Computers and Society courses, Winter 2003 (Bowen) at blackboard.wayne.edu Wednesdays, 6 - 9:40 PM in Computer Classroom 16 at WACC Computers and Society     GST 2710, Section 986, CRN 25072, 4 credits Computers and Society     AGS 3360, Section 986, CRN 25009, 4 credits Office hours: Wednesdays 5 - 6 PM at WACC	Instructor
	David R. Bowen 2311 A/AB Wayne State University Detroit, MI 48202	Daytime tel: (313) 577-1498 Evening tel: (248) 549-8518 FAX: (313) 577-8585 Home Page:     http://www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/drbowen Email: d.r.bowen@wayne.edu

Last updated: 4/16/03
Link back to course Welcome...

Thirteenth class: Agenda 13
Wednesday April 16

1. Announcements
   1. The Sign In, Sign Out and Online Grade Reports are working now.
   2. The assignment on Agenda 10 should have been labeled Assignment 11.
   3. Handouts: (a) Agenda 13, (b) Topics for Final Exam, (c) QBASIC (for lab next week)
   4. The Final Exam is April 30. The Topics sheet for material since Quiz 2 will be handed out tonight, and available on the course web site. The Final will be cumulative, covering also the Topics sheets for the Midterm and Quiz 2. There will be a question-and-answer review on April 23. 
   5. You can access the course web site either through Blackboard or through the public web (no login), www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/drbowen/casw03
   6. Besides 5 - 6 PM on Wednesdays, you can find me at the office hours for my other class, 6 - 7 PM on Fridays in Room 122 Cohn on campus, diagonally across from A/AB (IS headquarters) on the intersection of Palmer and Cass. I do not stay beyond 6:45 if no one is there.
   7. Information on purchasing software through the University:
      http://support.wayne.edu/allwsu/software/support/index.php
2. Reminders
   1. Essay is due April 23; see Agenda 2 Item II.C.2 for details. The topic can come either through the last Chapters in the textbook, as explained in Agenda 2, or from the "Issues" sheet handed out and discussed in class.
3. Topics we will cover in class tonight:
   1. File Sizes for Computer Information
      1. Computer instruction storage (programs)
   2. Paper and Pencil Computer
      1. Example using PJUMP
   3. Social issues
   4. Microsoft Access (database)
4. File Sizes for Computer Information (handout)
5. Paper and Pencil Computer (handouts)
6. Social issues (handed out earlier for reading ahead of time)
7. Microsoft Access (database)
8. Artificial Intelligence (additional issue)
9. Lab 12. Read the following steps all the way through before starting. Please label your work "Lab 12."
   1. In Microsoft Office 2000 Professional, do Access Tutorial 2 (AC 2.01 through 2.33, with the green corners about at the middle of the book). If you are going to do this outside of this lab, make sure that you know which pages to work on before you leave class tonight. Make the printouts of your document as described and a cover sheet made using Word (see below), and save your document to your floppy diskette.
   2. In this tutorial, you start from the existing file, Restaurant.mdb, which you worked on for Lab 11, and import some records for a new table from the Valle.mdb database, which you can download from the course web site or get from the CD that came with your book.
   3. Create a one-page cover sheet for your lab using Word. On the cover sheet, put:
      1. Your name
      2. This Assignment (Lab 12)
      3. Your location (Wayne County Center)
      4. The full path (drive, any folders, and filename) that you saved your Excel file with.
      5. Print out the cover sheet and staple it in front of your printouts.
   4. As a result of your work in this lab, you should be able to do the following under test conditions:
      1. Start Access, beginning with the computer off.
      2. Open an existing database and create a new table in Design View.
      3. Import data from another database into an existing table using Copy and Paste.
      4. Modify the structure of an existing table by deleting and adding fields.
      5. Exit Access.
   5. To practice these without the detailed directions in the Tutorial, look at the Review Assignment and Case Problems at the end of the Tutorial.
10. Artificial Intelligence (additional issue)
    1. What is artificial intelligence? Of course, there are lots of jokes questioning whether humans are intelligent in the first place. But humans are far better at everyday reasoning than computer are. But on the other hand, computers are getting better. Here are several hypotheses (guesses) as to why humans are so much better at reasoning:
       1. Even though our "hardware" in the brain, sometimes called "wetware," is much slower, it is different than the Von Neumann architecture like that in the Paper and Pencil computer, and our neurons may be much more efficient at everyday reasoning. Research is going on into the nature of neurons, and people are attempting to build computer systems that act more like the human brain. One example of such systems is the "neural network," a network of interconnected software modules that mimic some aspects of neurons, and can display some characteristics of learning from experience.
       2. Another possibility is that, even if our hardware isn't better, we do many more things at the same time ("multitasking" or "parallel computing") and so out-compute computers this way. Again, computer systems are being constructed that do many more things in parallel.
       3. A third possibility is that, even by the time we are five or six years old, we have an enormous store of background information that help us make sense of new information, while a computer has to learn everything from ground zero every time it starts a new program. There are attempts to program massive amounts of background information into computers.
       4. The fourth possibility that we will mention here is that the structure of our minds may be more flexible. Basically, we have an unconscious that takes care of many things without our attention, and which may even do some thinking for us, for example during dreams, or before a flash of insight (an aha! experience), and a conscious mind which is self-aware and can direct itself to focus on a situation. It is less clear how to mimic this in a computer, and in fact it is not at all clear today how human consciousness works.
    2. Part of the problem with understanding what artificial intelligence means is that we only have a very general idea of what intelligence itself means. Generally, the most basic definition is an ability to use brain power to adapt to changes in the total environment. By "total environment" we mean not only the biological or living environment, as we normally use the word, but also the effects of our civilization, such as buildings and cars, and the effects of other people (the social and personal environment) but even our own internal environment, our own thoughts and actions. We do have a measure of intelligence, the IQ, and an IQ test, but this is much criticized as not measuring the ability to adapt, but instead the results of having adapted in the past, and to a specific environment, generally a Western white middle-class environment. So aside from this specific meaning (the score on a particular test that may or may not measure what we want it to), we mean the ability to function well in the face of change and incomplete information, to be able to integrate information from a wide variety of sources, to be able to sort through information acquired in the past and to focus relevant facts from the past on the current situation, to learn, and so forth. Are all of these facets related to each other, or are they all independent, and is any one list complete? We don't know. I believe that we will learn all of this and more in the future, but for now we don't know exactly what intelligence itself is.
    3. Historically, we are becoming more demanding before we call something "intelligent." For example, before computing we thought it required intelligence to add. But now that we have $2 calculators that can add, we don't think this is intelligent any more. Similarly, proofreading and outlining functions were originally thought to be intelligent. And now that we have computer systems that act as if they are learning, at least in a simple way, simple learning is not thought to be intelligent. Clearly, we are much more able to deal with conflicting and incomplete information than computers are, and we are much better at learning.
    4. Some commentators argue that computer can never be intelligent, that this is beyond what any device following a program (a list of instructions) can ever be intelligent in the way that humans are. As a skeptical scientist, I have seen many such arguments disproven. The only real proof in this area would be a computer that actually is intelligent; by this argument, if we do not have an intelligent computer yet, that is just because we haven't learned the right way yet. Even supposing that we never have an intelligent computer, computers can still be very helpful, by doing for us the things that we are not good at, such as following directions exactly.
    5. How would we tell if a computer is intelligent? The usual test is "the Turing test," originated by the English computer scientist Alan Turing. In this test, a computer and a human are put behind a wall, and a human or panel of humans ask questions, which are answered by means of printing on paper or some other means that can be done by both humans and computers. First a question to the human, then one to the computer, etc. This seems like a good test, and is run regularly. It is depressing that even simple computer programs can fool human beings. A famous example is the "Eliza" program - see page INT-10 in Computers, Technology and Society.
    6. The "agent interface" is an example of trying to apply simple intelligence to the interactions between humans and computers. The "Office Assistant" is an example of an agent interface, although since I don't like the Office Assistant (the paper clip guy), I hope that this is an early and crude example.
    7. There is no doubt that even moderate artificial intelligence within a computer would have a major economic and social impact. Computers would be much better at working with humans, and programs with artificial intelligence interfaces would quickly take over the market. Humans would no longer be employable unless they used even higher-level skills, just as machines took over from human muscle, and computers from much of accounting and proofreading. So far, I think that technology, while it has created problems no doubt, has also given us much more freedom of choice than we have had before, and it has also allowed our population to soar to the point where we are a massive global threat to other species. Would artificial intelligence be like this, where we would more or less voluntarily adopt it, or would the competition between humans and computers lead to our hating and rejecting computers? Fascinating? Stay tuned and just maybe we'll find out!
11. Don't forget to Sign Out!
12. Turning your computer off
    1. Save any files that you have worked on during the class and still have open
    2. Click on "Start" then Shut Down...
    3. Make sure that "Shut down the computer" is selected and click "Yes"
    4. Wait for the dialog "It is now safe to turn off your computer.", then turn off the power using the red switch under the desktop.

Assignment 14, due in class on April 23. Please write or type "Assignment 14" on the work you turn in for this assignment.

1. Use Microsoft Word to write a short essay (200 to 300 words) on any one of the second six social issues on the "Issues in Science and Technology" handout. INCLUDE THE NAME OF THE ISSUE FROM THE HANDOUT, AND THE WORD COUNT AS REPORTED BY MICROSOFT WORD! Your essay should briefly describe the background and facts and give your own point of view. You can disagree with the point of view in the handout, but you may not ignore the disagreement. In other words, if there is disagreement, acknowledge that and describe it.
2. Repeat 3 for a second issue.
3. In Computers, Technology, and Society, read Chapter INT and answer the following Review questions on pg INT-35: 2, 4, 5 and 8. (NOTE: Also look over the AI questions on the Final Topics, before you read this Chapter.)
4. Read the QBASIC handout in preparation for the lab next week.