CB Big Idea 5.1 Beneficial and Harmful Effects Student Lesson

Presented by Team WRONG

General Idea

Technology will always move forward with each innovation. These innovations have both upsides and downsides, and both are important to acknowledge and understand. Technology is designed with a purpose in mind but always has unintended effects as it is impossible to predict every single way an innovation will be used, so we have a responsiblity as consumers to use technology for its intended function and for the good of others and as programmers to guide the technology’s function to benefit others and to be clear on its purpose. Here, we will explain some common technological innovations that have greatly shaped our world and their beneficial and harmful impacts.

UAVs and Drones

  • UAVs (or unmanned aerial vehicles) are simply vehicles without a human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. The use of a UAV can be split into two categories; civillian and military. While civilian UAVs are used for package deliveries and recreation, military drones are used for scout missions and carrying out offensive strikes on enemy targets.

  • Drones are vehicles without a human pilot, crew, or passengers and the term can be used synonymously with UAVs, however drones are usually remote controlled. UAVs may have autonomous abilities, while Drones do not, which means that all drones are UAVs, but not all UAVs are drones. Drones are much more commonly used than UAVs, and have uses such as construction, mining, inspection, emergency management, forestry, jounalism, law enforcement, etc.

Benefits

  • Aids with military use, as stated previously, by transporting packages or conducting remote spy missions

  • Can help with search and rescue missions, offering more flexibility with movement and speed, as well as the use of thermal cameras for detection

  • Commonly used as a hobby, especially in movie or short-film aerial/cenimatic shots

Disadvantages

  • Technical: The drone’s reliability and communication via radio signals make it susceptible to signal interference, which could cause it to lose control and pose a safety hazard

  • Safety concern: drones equipped with a camera can pose the risk of a disruption of privacy, if people used it with malicious intent and captured people without their permission

  • Ethical: Rapid drone development could lead to regulatory issues, causing confusion and potentially legal issues. It is important to keep the balance of drone regulations to keep society calm when it comes to the privacy risk of using drones.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Artifical Intelligence is the ability of a computer or robot to perform tasks usually associated with human intelletual processes. Put simply, that means a computer with the ability to think and reason through problems (or at least have the semblance of reasoning). Today’s most famous AI models - such as GPT-3.5, DALL-E, or Bard - are all LLMs (large lanuage models). An LLM works by using deep learning to perform natural language processing tasks on huge datasets. This allows them to mimic human intelligence at high speeds, making AI incredibly useful yet also incredibly threatening to human society.

  • AI can:
    • Create pictures
    • Write essays
    • Make functional code
    • And much, much, more
  • AI development is currently at its fastest pace, especially with OpenAI’s GPTs release just a few weeks ago, and AI tools to help your life anywhere from summarizing lectures to planning your outfits are now all over the internet

Benefits and Negatives

Because of AI’s immense capabilities, many worry the loss to human society will be greater than the gains it brings us.

  • BENEFITS:
    • Increased Efficiency and Innovation:
      • LLMs can automate tasks across various industries, freeing up human resources for more strategic and creative endeavors. This automation fosters innovation and accelerates productivity, contributing to overall economic growth. This means that human businesses can grow on a huge scale and people can accomplish more with less workers, allowing many projects to be completed effectively.
    • Global Communication and Language Translation:
      • Since LLMs are great at language translation, they’re able to break down language barriers and strengthen communication on a global scale. This promotes international understanding, collaboration, and the exchange of ideas, fostering a more interconnected and globally aware society. Learning languages is made easier, as well as using them, allowing for a better global future.
  • HARMFUL EFFECTS:
    • Job Displacement and Economic Inequality:
      • While LLMs enhance efficiency, they likely will lead to major job displacement in sectors where routine language tasks are automated. For example, in the recent writers strike, one of the key points they agreed on was that AI could not be allowed to write scripts for movies. AI can contribute to economic inequality and require a shift in workforce skills. It’s essential we address these challenges and if we continue developing AI, we educate and retrain ourselves to work on better jobs
    • Privacy and Security Concerns:
      • LLMs often require vast amounts of data for training, raising concerns about privacy. Inappropriately handled data may compromise individual privacy, leading to potential misuse or unauthorized access. The data we put into it is a big concern as well, due to the fact that AI only determines its thoughts by the information we feed it. If we feed it a source with lots of bias - like for example all of reddit - the responses we get back will be harmful and often socially unacceptable.

Pros of Video Games as a Technological Advancement:

  • Entertainment and Recreation: Video games provide a diverse and immersive form of entertainment, offering a wide range of genres and experiences for players.

  • Educational Value: Certain video games are designed to be educational, teaching players various skills, problem-solving, strategic thinking, and even historical or scientific knowledge.

  • Social Interaction: Online multiplayer games facilitate social interaction and collaboration among players worldwide, fostering communities and friendships.

  • Technology Advancement: The gaming industry drives technological innovation, leading to advancements in graphics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and other technologies that often have applications beyond gaming.

  • Cognitive Benefits: Many video games require critical thinking, quick decision-making, and hand-eye coordination, contributing to cognitive skills development.

  • Therapeutic Applications: Video games are being explored for therapeutic purposes, such as pain management, rehabilitation, and mental health treatments.

Cons of Video Games as a Technological Advancement:

  • Addiction and Excessive Screen Time: Excessive gaming can lead to addiction and may contribute to sedentary behavior, leading to health issues such as obesity and sleep disorders.

  • Violence and Aggression: Some studies suggest a potential link between exposure to violent video games and increased aggression, although the relationship is complex and debated among researchers.

  • Social Isolation: While online gaming provides a platform for social interaction, excessive gaming can lead to social isolation, with individuals preferring virtual relationships over real-world connections.

  • Impact on Academic Performance: Spending too much time on video games may negatively impact academic performance, as it can interfere with study time and other responsibilities.

  • Monetary Costs: Video games and gaming equipment can be expensive, and in-game purchases can lead to significant additional costs.

  • Health Concerns: Prolonged gaming sessions may contribute to physical health issues, including eyestrain, musculoskeletal problems, and issues related to poor posture.

It’s essential to note that the impact of video games can vary based on factors such as content, duration of play, and individual differences. Moderation and responsible use are key considerations for reaping the benefits of video games while minimizing potential drawbacks.

Social Media

  • Overview

  • Social media is a form of an online platform that allows for us to connect through the sharing of information and consumption of content amongst users. Social Media enables users to connect in real time through posts, videos, likes, and comments. It has transformed communication, provided a powerful way of personal expression, allowes for buisness promotion. However, it has also raised many concerns about privacy, cyber bulling, effecting dopamine, and addiction.

Benefits

  • Connectivity: Social Media has allowed for users all over the world to connect online. You can share information and learn about cultures from all over the world. You can connect with online firends or family and share information through posts and videos. It allows you to showcase your talents to the world and can help you express yourself.

  • Information Sharing: Apps like youtube can help you learn through educational conntent. Social Media helps keep you up to date on trending topics going on in the world. It is often used when people are in need of recources or recomendations and can help people problem solve easily.

  • Business: Social Media is a powerful tool people can use for marketing. It provides an easy way to promote your product and build brand awarness globally. It can help someone by sharing a newly released product quickly to people all over the world.

Overall, Social Media provides many benifits as it alows for people to connect all over the world and share information that can be used to provide enjoyment for a user or help someone educationally. It can help people build confidence and express themslevs and provide a way for people to promote their business or product to a wide audience.

Negatives

  • Privacy: Social Media has constant privacy problmes. People are concerned that certain apps are taking information from the users. Also, People face hacking problems where users can steal peoples information and use it against them.

  • CyberBullying/ Mental Health: Online platforms are often used in bad ways by the users. It’s much easier to bully someone when you are not face to face with them. People get harrased and bullied which can lead to serious mental problems. People also compare themselves to others which can result in a lowered slef estyeem or even depression.

  • Addiction: Social Media is extremely addictive as it causes peopel to release small amounts of dopamine which attracts a user to use their app. Featres like infinite scrolling can make it hard for people to get off thae app which may reult in people using certain apps for many hours at a time.

Overall, Social Media has plenty harmful effects that go with the good. People deal with privacy problems all the time and are concerned that their information may be stealed by a user or even by the app. Bullying is also very common as it is much easier online. People deal with depression and anxiety which may come from socia media. Lastly, Social Media is extremely addictive and it can mess with your overall dopamine levels. People get addicted to scrolling on Tiktok and it can take many hours of your day away.

Popcorn Hack

  • Check your phone’s screentime! How much time have you spent on social media? Were you conscious that you were spending that much time on it? How has it positively or negatively impacted you?

Automated Telephone Trees

Automated telephone trees is a system where it can communicate using fixed voice menus with the caller, who can then respond by pressing buttons on the phone or by verbally responding. The system takes and interprets this input as information and can reroute calls, play another response, log information, and more.

  • One common example we all know is customer service. We call some business or place and are greeted with an automatic message asking us what we need help with –> we press a button and the system takes that information and moves us to an actual person or another automated message.
  • An example of a phone tree is shown below:

Beneficial effects:

  • 1: Lowers the workload on employees. A call center like customer service gets a massive number of calls all the time, and it is incredibly inefficient and borderline impossible to have every single person be immediately transferred to a human working at the service center. Furthermore, the person who picks up the call may not be in the department or qualified to deal with the issue. Automated phone trees can prompt the caller for a response (such as what type of issue they are having) and sort the calls so they can be transferred to qualified professionals, and some can even give an automated message with the instructions to fix the problem. As a result, automated phone trees greatly alleviate the burden on employees.
  • 2: Greater reliability. An automated phone tree does not require manual use, and thus it can accept calls 24/7. While it may not connect the caller to a human, there will (most often) always be an option to leave a voicemail, so later someone will contact you back. This guarantees that every call will be received and read.

Harmful effects:

  • 1: Terrible at handling emergencies. Emergencies require instant attention and information relaying and automatic phone trees fundamentally require time, as it uses automatic messages, call queues, holds, transfers, and more until finally reaching a human. This creates many delays which can worsen the emergency.
  • 2: Customer dissatisfaction. The phone tree requires the caller to input information, and sometimes this can take a long time as they need to listen to the complete automated voice message, press 1 button, hear another message, press another button, and so on. This can annoy the caller and lead to them simply hanging up. Hold times can also sometimes be long and wait times are a big issue. Furthermore, if the phone tree is set up to have the caller verbally respond to a question, the phone tree might not be able to interpret their response, leading to further dissatisfaction. Lastly, the caller might need to repeat their situation multiple times over and over again and no one wants to do that as it is a waste of time.

Homework

For each of the following technologies, please list 2 beneficial and 2 harmful effects and briefly explain.

  • Online shopping:
  • Cryptocurrency:

Below are examples of a technological innovation and one impact. Classify them as beneficial or harmful and explain. Remember that effects are subjective and can be seen as beneficial or harmful depending on the purpose. There is no single “right” answer, so this is graded based on how clear your explanation is.

  • A relatively recent development in computers is quantum computing, where qubits are used as its unit of information. Taking advantage of quantum mechanics, quantum computers are much faster and more effective, at especially calculations, than regular supercomputers, which have implications in fields where there are many variables and unknowns.
  • January 1st, 1983 is considered the birthday of the Internet, and as you all can guess, the Internet connected all computer networks across the globe.

Consider this hypothetical scenario. 15 years from now, Team WRONG is planning to launch a new virtual reality system to be streamline gaming and make the experience more immersive. The team has planned for the beneficial effects of attracting more people into gaming and helping people relieve their stress, and for the harmful effects of making the addiction issue worse.

  • What is one potential unintended effect and why can it lead to it? Is this effect beneficial or harmful and why?

Online Shopping

Beneficial:

  • Convenience: Shop from anywhere, anytime, with a wide variety of products available.
  • Competitive prices: Easily compare prices across different retailers to find the best deals.

Harmful:

  • Impulse buying: Tempting discounts and easy checkout can lead to overspending.
  • Environmental impact: Packaging waste, transportation emissions, and returns contribute to pollution.

Cryptocurrency

Beneficial:

  • Decentralization: Secure and transparent transactions without relying on intermediaries like banks.
  • Innovation: Potential for new financial products and services beyond traditional banking.

Harmful:

  • Volatility: Prices can fluctuate wildly, leading to potential losses for investors.
  • Illicit activity: Can be used for money laundering and other criminal activities due to its anonymity.

Technological Innovation Examples

  • Quantum Computing: Beneficial, but with potential risks.
    • Solving complex problems: Faster drug discovery, materials science breakthroughs, and financial modeling.
    • Breaking encryption: Could potentially compromise online security and privacy.
  • Internet: Beneficial, with both positive and negative consequences.
    • Global communication and information access: Connects people and cultures, facilitates education and research.
    • Spread of misinformation and hate speech: Can be used to manipulate public opinion and promote harmful ideologies.
  • Team WRONG’s VR System:
    • Potential unintended effect: Social isolation and physical health neglect.
    • Immersive gameplay: Users might spend excessive time in VR, neglecting real-world interactions and physical activity.
    • Addiction potential: VR’s stimulating and rewarding nature could lead to dependence, impacting mental and emotional well-being.
    • Harmful, with potential long-term consequences:
      • Increased risk of depression, anxiety, and social withdrawal.
      • Physical health issues like obesity, muscle atrophy, and eyesight problems.