This May, I will be graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, along with just under 1,000 of my closest friends.
What is it about our world that leads to an increasing number of college students pursuing degrees in Computer Science each year? The answer is simple – our world has become an infosphere, and it needs experts to keep it running.
Floridi describes the term infosphere in Chapter 2 of his book The Fourth Revolution. At a basic level, infosphere is “the whole informational environment constituted by all informational entities, their properties, interactions, processes, and mutual relations.” Floridi goes on to say that it could become a term used in conjunction with reality if we think about reality in terms of information.
As a soon-to-be computer scientist, this idea excites me. My future colleagues and I have the opportunity to create and maintain technologies that process and make useful the enormous quantity of information that surrounds us.
The technical knowledge we have positions us perfectly to develop information and communication technologies (ICTs) that are an integral part to the infosphere. These technologies are the backbone of the interaction of informational entities, making the infosphere function as Floridi claims it does in his definition.
However, we also have a responsibility to keep the infosphere running smoothly and create technology that works toward that goal. In Chapter 5 of the Cambridge Handbook, Floridi defines moral agents as interactive, autonomous, adaptable, and capable of actions that have moral implications. He explains that moral agents have a duty to help the infosphere thrive and are considered evil if their actions cause harm to the infosphere.
Computer scientists are moral agents that must live up to these standards. This should be our motivation to be good caretakers of the infosphere. Our jobs come from the necessity to manage the ever-growing amount of information in the infosphere. So, we should want the infosphere to keep thriving if only for the selfish goal of keeping our jobs.
Therefore, it is important that the moral agents (technologies) we create have this same underlying principle of helping the infosphere flourish. These technologies will change our world and the infosphere in important ways.
With whatever technologies we develop in the future, our goal should be that they keep the infosphere one that we want to live in.
As a fellow computer science major, the title of your article really grabbed my attention. I think you did an excellent job relating your discussion of computer science to the readings from class. You made sure to bring up the readings within your third paragraph and referenced them consistently throughout the article. I do think you could perhaps include a few more pictures within your article in order to its increase visual appeal. By exploring the role of computer scientists in the infosphere you got me to reflect more on my own views of morality within technology.
ReplyDeleteI loved your writing style for this article. Writing in the first person emphasized your personal experience and strengthened your claims. I also liked how your claims made took a clear stance and they were believable because they were supported by readings referenced previously in the article and your own experience. The formatting of the article (large font, separate paragraphs) made it easy to digest and enjoyable to read. Well done!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this post! I am also a computer science major so I could really relate to what you were talking about. I loved that you brought in a class reading towards the beginning and that you referenced 2 readings to further strengthen your point. My only suggestion would be to maybe add another photo or two throughout your post to break up the text and help keep the reader engaged. Also, it may be interesting to briefly touch on the roles of non-computer scientists in the infosphere to help the general reader relate.
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