Techno-solutionism

“techno-solutionism,” the simplification of complex societal problems into apps and algorithms. Ed-Tech’s Inequalities “Technological solutionism” is the related tendency to identify simple answers — in all domains, not just the tech sector — “before the questions have been fully asked” or the problems fully articulated. Take, for example: “the Internet has changed everything about how […]

The Distribution of Users’ Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think

Across 33 rich countries, only 5% of the population has high computer-related abilities, and only a third of people can complete medium-complexity tasks.

When did Computer Science Theory Get so Hard?

I posted on  When did Math get so hard?  a commenter pointed out that one can also ask  When did Computer Science Theory Get so Hard? For t...

Difficulty is about trust and communication, not ‘hard’ vs. ‘easy’

Why game designers and players talk about difficulty very differently

Experts Argue Whether Computers Could Reason, and if They Should (Published 1977)

Computer world is in midst of fundamental dispute over question of computer intelligence since MIT Prof Joseph Weizenbaum wrote book arguing that machines can never be made to reason like people and should not be; Weizenbaum por (M)

The Missing Discipline in Computer Science

On Teaching Computer Scientists to Ask “Why”

Hey, Computer Scientists! Stop Hating on the Humanities

Opinion: Computer science departments need to teach coders more than just how to code.

All you need is data and functions

It's really easy to tend towards complexity as engineers. I think on some level, we love complexity. There are obviously bad types of complexity, but I think there are other types of it that we seek out, because there's something satisfying about wrapping your head around it; and I think a lot of that kind of complexity ends up in our programming languages.

How to be a wise optimist about science and technology?

I believe the central problem of the 21st century is how civilization co-evolves with science and technology. As our understanding of the world deepens, it enables technologies that confer ever more power to both improve and damage the world. There's currently much public discussion of this in the context of artificial superintelligence (ASI). However, it's a fundamental recurring challenge, affecting areas including climate change, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, geoengineering, brain-computer interfaces, and many more. How can we best benefit from science and technology, while supplying safety sufficient to ensure a healthy, flourishing civilization?

E.W. Dijkstra Archive: On the cruelty of really teaching computing science (EWD 1036)

The second part of this talk pursues some of the scientific and educational consequences of the assumption that computers represent a radical novelty. In order to give this assumption clear contents, we have to be much more precise as to what we mean in this context by the adjective "radical". We shall do so in the first part of this talk, in which we shall furthermore supply evidence in support of our assumption.

Anatomy of an Enduring Gender Gap: The Evolution of Women’s Participation in Computer Science

Given growing interest in computing fields, as well as a longstanding gender gap in computer science, this study used nationwide survey data on college students during 4 decades to: (a) document tr...

Writing software is hard

Good software is uncommon because writing it is hard. In the abstract, we all know that it is hard. We talk incessantly about how it’s hard. And yet, we also collectively seem shocked — just shocke…

Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech

What is clear is that there is no simple solution to these challenges, and most of the ones that are normally presented tend not to deal with the reality of the problems or to understand the technical and societal challenges that likely make them impossible.

Human identity: the number one challenge in computer science

If the modern ‘problem of identity’ was how to construct an identity and keep it solid and stable, the postmodern ‘problem of identity’ is primarily how to avoid fixation and keep the options open. (Bauman 2011)