Request for Examples of new and controversial tech

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Hi,

I’m teaching a class this semester about the rhetoric of technology for undergraduate students. Each week I give them a real world application quiz where I introduce them to a new technology and they have to apply the class lessons from the week by addressing a real world situation about a new technology (Ex. Write an email to your parents explaining whether you think it’s a good idea to buy this digital companion for grandma.)

Since the goal of the assignment is to apply their knowledge to a new domain, it’s always helpful to use stuff they might not have heard of yet. I’d really appreciate it if you could share an explainer video or website for anything new you might be working on or something you’ve recently come across that blew your mind.

Thanks!

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Hey Ryan!

Have you heard of the Light Phone? https://www.thelightphone.com/
It’s a phone that will never have the Internet or email, to eliminate distractions and refocus on what’s important in life.

I’ve been working with the founders, creating some ads and other materials to help them expand. Let me know if you have any questions!

Best,

Dan

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Thanks for sharing Dan. That’s pretty cool. I enjoy learning about these intentional technology designs. Good luck with the project!

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Hey @theeryanwold ,

You sound like an interesting teacher. Those students are lucky to have a teacher like you.
During my school time, we were never introduced to such practices.

Anyway, faster internet (5G), robots like Sophia (AI-powered), a chatbot which uses sentiment analysis, etc. could be used for your exercises. Just adding somepoints.

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I can highly recommend to make it a kind of a habit to check Hacker News, the link aggregator social network for technologists that started in Silicon Valley. Not only is it one of the best information resources I know, it is the best moderated network. And many of the key players that are creating the technology are among its members, and active participants.

There are daily topics passing by that are excellent for your classes. And the comments on HN often provide many different, good quality perspectives on them. Over the years, as HN has grown, its nature has changed with it. Initially aligning to Silicon Valley mostly, now it is full of people that are highly critical of techbro culture that brought so many harms to our society.

An example of a good topic, selected today: Child protection vs. Privacy

The Hacker News discussion currently has 620 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28079171and it references related discussion like Apple enabling client-side CSAM scanning on iPhone tomorrow | Hacker News with 680 comments.

Based on this example and the subject at hand you might even define Themes, as sacrificing Privacy for Child protection is happening in many different context. It is interesting to consider the pros and cons and long-term consequences of that. EFF says:

Child exploitation is a serious problem, and Apple isn’t the first tech company to bend its privacy-protective stance in an attempt to combat it. But that choice will come at a high price for overall user privacy. Apple can explain at length how its technical implementation will preserve privacy and security in its proposed backdoor, but at the end of the day, even a thoroughly documented, carefully thought-out, and narrowly-scoped backdoor is still a backdoor.

Related to this same Theme is regulation recently adopted by the EU. Ostensibly it is created to protect children, but will likely have the opposite effect and it is a huge blow to Privacy for any EU citizen. Here’s an article by EU MEP Patrick Breyer:

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/message-screening/?lang=en

And a discussion on it: Indiscriminate messaging and chatcontrol: Last chance to protest | Hacker News