UFIE95-20-3 Information Systems and Society
Week 24: Revision

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Intellectual property and copyright

The impact of ICTs on intellectual property, copyright and fair use.

Reading: Lessig, 2002 and Davis, 2001, Mulligan, 2003

Identify: intellectual property, copyright, fair use, digital rights management.

Consider the possibility of complete copyright control, or whether a new balance between copyright owners and the public can be achieved.

Surveillance and privacy

Costs and benefits of increased visibility in digital domains

Reading: Lyon, 2002, Meeks, 2001, Kurzweil, 2001

Identify: social and workplace surveillance, the panoptican, the digital persona, data surveillance

Consider the essential ambiguity of surveillance, and whether this is simply technological progress, or whether there is a threat to privacy.
Can any general conclusions be made?

Artificial intelligence, cyborgs and human agency

Surrogate minds and bodies

Reading: Bell and Gray, 2001, Norman, 2001, Kurzweil, 2001, Dreyfus, 2002, Seely Brown and Duguid, 2000,

Identify: The delegation of human responsibilities to ICTs, cyborgs and the concept of 'human agency'. Also:
Lyotard's concept of the 'inhuman', the 'emancipatory' arguments made by Harraway, and the predictions made by the writers in the Reader.

In what way will contemporary developments in ICTs affect human agency?