Assignments for the first two weeks

For Wednesday, January 12, read:

1. Chapter 1 of the text.
2. ``A very Short History of Computer Ethics'', by Terrell Ward Bynum, originally published in the Summer 2000 issue of the American Philosophical Association's Newsletter on Philosophy and Computing. Do you agree with the Gorniak Hypothesis?
3. ``Why the future doesn't need us'', by Bill Joy, from Wired 8.04, April 2004.

   Bill Joy, co-founder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, was cochair of the presidential commission on the future of IT research, and is coauthor of The Java Language Specification.

   Please come prepared to discuss whether we need to be worried about extinction.

For Wednesday, January 19:

1. Please do Exercise 1.8 from the textbook, page 30 (short essay).

   Please use a font size no smaller than 12 point, and please use either reasonably wide margins (preferred) or double spacing.

   Please put a word count for your short essay at the end of the page.

2. Please read textbook Chapter 2.1-2.4.