Roger Blumberg is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Brown University. He teaches the course, Computers and Human Values (syllabus).
In this course we will read and discuss contemporary works motivated by recent developments in computer science (e.g. in robotics, networks, and computer security) and will find that each of these book raises fundamental questions not only about the future of computing, but the future of societies and human beings as well. Although the technological developments that prompt these questions may be new, the questions themselves are not — most have been debated and written about by students and scholars for hundreds if not thousands of years. Therefore, in addition to the contemporary visions we will read and discuss texts from a "pre-digital" age that raise (and answer) the same questions in different ways.
Readings include:
(Required readings)
Moravec, Hans. Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind
Arnold, Matthew. Culture and Anarchy and Other Writings
Chorost, Michael. Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human
(Secondary readings)
Boden, Margaret (editor). The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence
Black, Michael. Connecting Brains with Machines
Brooks, Rodney. Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us
Coupland, Douglas. Microserfs
Dean, Tom. Talking with Computers
Fukuyama, Francis. Our Posthuman Future
Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Post-Human
Kurzweil, Ray. The Age of Spiritual Machines
Lyotard, Jean-Francois. The Postmodern Condition
Mack, Arien. Technology and the Rest of Culture
Postman, Neil. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology
Powers, Richard. Galatea 2.2
