Week 4 [19-25.11.2018] Morality of a car

In nowadays when machine learning has become more popular, most of us already heard about driverless-cars. Tesla provides that kind of functionality in their models, google is testing theirs, uber’s already killed one pedestrian and there’s a few other car manufactures that are implementing it into their products.

Picture 1: Google self-driving car

(https://static01.nyt.com/images/2012/10/28/automobiles/28JPSELF/28JPSELF-jumbo.jpg)

History of self-driving cars is a bit longer, because the first one was developed in 1977, it could reach speed of 30 kilometers per hour. It was using two cameras that were interpreting white street markers, the same idea is used in newer cars also.

The first question that we should ask is why do we need this kind of cars? The First reason is that we could use it for really long paths, instead of hiring a driver that will drive a few days from one point to another, lets make a computer do it without the need to sleep, eat or use toilet. It should let us save a few hours, which can lead to fresher food and lowering the cost of transportation. The second one and a lot more important is an increase in people’s safety. According to the World Health Organization in 2013, more than a billion people died in car accidents that year all over the world. Last year in Poland almost 3 thousand people died in car accidents and almost 45 thousand were injured. Those numbers are really big and by using driver-less cars we could lower it by 90%, as computers are always focused on their tasks, it doesn’t feel tired and has a lot faster reaction time than humans do. In our country it could also help getting rid of drunk drivers.

Picture 2: Percentage of traffic fatalities

(https://3h308wkqnxzfmr3r2xse3b16-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Screen-Shot-2016-05-26-at-4.58.05-PM.png)

At the begging when we will have both driver-less cars and normal cars, we will still have some of accidents mostly because of human errors, but when all cars will be driven by computers, accidents that involve both cars should happen only because of mechanical errors like broken brakes, a tire being blown etc. Still, those situations could take place and in case of that we should be prepared. Here we have to think about the ethics of a driverless-car. Imagine a situation that you are in an autonomous car as a passenger, your brakes are not working and the computer has to decide: run

through pedestrians and kill 3 people or hit the wall that will lead to killing the driver and a passenger. In most cases you will answer that the computer should always choose less harm, but would you buy a car with knowledge that it will kill you when needed? More about that problem could be watched in this TEDx video:

If you have some spare time, please use the moral machine mentioned in this video that you can find here:

http://moralmachine.mit.edu/

Would you buy a driverless car for yourself?

What should the computer prioritize when making decisions?

Do you think that common use of autonomous cars will kill some of the job positions like a taxi driver or lorry drivers?

Who should we blame when a car crashes because of some bug in a code? A programmer, the company that sold the product or maybe let clients know what is the risk of that and don’t let them blame anyone?

Sources:

Picture 1: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2012/10/28/automobiles/28JPSELF/28JPSELF-jumbo.jpg

Picture 2: https://3h308wkqnxzfmr3r2xse3b16-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wpcontent/

uploads/2016/05/Screen-Shot-2016-05-26-at-4.58.05-PM.png

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb-WdVA4_bo

WHO statistic: http://www.who.int/gho/road_safety/mortality/traffic_deaths_number/en/

Polish police statistics: http://statystyka.policja.pl/st/ruch-drogowy/76562,Wypadki-drogoweraporty- roczne.html

Week 4 [19-25.11.2018] User Experience - human-centrist revolution

I have recently been inspired by one of the lectures on the VIIth semester about the Human - Computer Interaction. Having Master's degree in Philosophy, I am probably a little bit more humanist than the average Joe and as such, the subject matter of the lecture truly spoke to me. Interaction between humans and computers, more widely referred to as an interaction between people and objects has been laid out as an utterly reasonable, extremely holistic domain. Asking the right questions, providing interesting answers and asking even better questions in turn.

I wanted to focus on the evolution of design, which, from my perspective, has been widely entertaining. Back in the day, the object of the design has been the product that has been designed, but at the same time, the product has also been the subject. Currently, this has changed and the overall consensus is that the real subject of the design, should be the human that is going to use the product, which remained the object of the design. What has been realised was that the product itself is not important without a context. That the context is being provided by the humans interacting with the product. That the function of the product needs to be explicit, or that the function of the product needs to be flexible to accommodate for humans trying to break it. That design for the sake of design will always be trumped by the design to maximise functionality. Lo and behold. User Experience has been born!

Don Norman - First User Experience Architect recorded

The term User Experience has been first coined by Don Norman. He is an engineer and a professor of cognitive psychology (you know, that's the thing that researches how our brain reacts to different stimuli - how we see things, how we feel things, etc.). Don Norman has been hired by Apple in 1995 (a couple years before an iPhone) and insisted that he should be called the User Experience Architect. That is the first recorded use of the term. What it meant, was that the design has a higher purpose other than to make things look nice. It was supposed to create an experience in which using the thing brings as much joy as possible and as little frustration as possible. It was supposed to be centered on the human, not on production cost, or design feasibility.

Throughout this week, I will be trying to show how the introduction of User Experience changed the design world. How it rekindled its purpose and returned the design to the masses, sort of like Ford T's design. How it bridges the gap between usability and aesthetics. And what empathy and psychology have to do with design in the XXI century.

What do you think?

1. Have you noticed how focusing on user experience affected design of things? How do you think a touch screen came to be? Why does swiping the screen feel so natural to us that pressing actual physical buttons seems weird?
2. Do you think that the practical application of a product is important in the design process? Can you think of things that you are probably not using as they were intended to be used?
3. Can design be bad? Would you be able to immediately know what to do with the doors on the example if they didn't have signs? Would you know how to illuminate a certain sector of the room based on the light switches on the other example?

Week 4 [19-25.11.2018] Coding boot camps- knowledge in the nutshell or false promises?

A lifetime ago most if not all computing pioneers or professionals where thoroughly educated mathematicians, physicists or more recently computer scientists who spent many years of their lives on studying many aspects of information technology and related sciences. 

Times have changed, uncountable layers of abstraction have been laid since the invention of computers, and programmers can be seen as modern skilled craftsmen who don’t need to understand every bit of computer science in order to perform their craft well.

Coding boot camps pushed this idea even further and with market’s stable demand for workers in IT field they started to offer intense learning courses for people with little to no prior IT experience or education. The above mentioned courses usually have very similar structure. Attendees sit in class for a few months and learn under guidance of experienced professional, known as mentors in a boot camp’s lingo. Knowledge passed to students is strictly focused on the market’s needs.  

Unlike in a college you won’t have to memorize useless trivia or use outdated solutions which are no longer relevant to business applications.

The idea behind boot camps sounds great. If you don’t have experience, they will teach you everything that is necessary, if you can’t find a job or work in a dead-end job they will give you a kick-start in one of the most promising fields right now. But are those slogans used by companies true? Is a three months course equivalent to at least a three year long in-depth program you are taught in college?

Over the internet you can find very different opinions about the boot camps. 

On the one hand you can find people massively criticizing the phenomenon. Dominant point of criticism is focused on lack of knowledge of attendees. Despite skills they learned it is often not enough to land a job, because even though demand is high so is competition on the market.

On the other hand you can see people praising boot camps and telling how taking part in one was a major factor in finding their first job in the industry and it probably would not happen it they didn’t participate in such a course.

However, I once stumbled upon a comment which felt most reasonable to me. The author of the comment said that it was not the pricey camp which landed him a job but his own work after hours.

1.Do you have any prior experience with boot camps?

2.Do you think they can replace college education?

3. If you have any additional thoughts about the topic feel free to comment.

Sources:

1^stimage:https://medium.com/bits-and-behavior/what-i-learned-from-researching-coding-bootcamps-f594c15bd9e0

2^nd : https://www.coursereport.com/blog/are-coding-bootcamps-worth-it

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Week 4 [19-25.11.2018] Alternative Rock

In my opinion alternative music in overall is a music genre that unites bands that doesn’t classify to popular genres like rock, pop, EDM etc. There are mainly two sub-categories of alternative music - alternative rock and alternative pop.

Because of that problems with classification it makes this genre very interesting. Every year new bands are born with their unique sound, diverged from the rest of the scene and they are very interesting on every part of their artistic path.

The whole interest in alternative music starts in 1990, after the punk rock movement. Punk rock was very inspiring for many artist who then were called “alternative”.

First alternative band that became very popular world-wide was surely Nirvana. The band was referring with their sound to punk rock music which was very popular in Seattle in early 90. It’s raw sound and depressive lyrics was an interesting mix also guitar sound changed in comparison to other bands at that time. Let’s just imagine now being in early 90. where all bands want to be ‘classic rock’ and there comes Nirvana with delays and reverbs on guitars, very simple rhythms but also very catchy and they steal hearts until now (actually there were some bands before which were called alternative f.e. U2, but Nirvana was the first with commercial success)

But that was about US. Let’s look now at British scene which in my opinion was far more interesting musically at that time. In Manchester two brothers and 3 of their friends start a band. Living on a welfare they start their first rehearsals somewhere in Manchester and shortly after that they become a world known band with couple of hits in their discography. The band was called Oasis, settled by Noel Gallagher, but shortly after his brother Liam Gallagher joined him and they started rocking all over the world.

Next to them, in the same time, their music career start bands like: Supergrass, Pulp, Blur, The Verve. All of them where called then ‘Britpop’ bands, but for the sake of this article we will call them “alternative” because in fact they were alternative first and then this term ‘Britpop’ came, after great successes of all those bands.

In Poland we never had a boom like in US or UK regarding alternative rock, but we also have some artist, especially now, who can easily be called alternative. First alternative band for me in Poland was Republika. Their music is a little claustrophobic, cold but very catchy, the lyrics aren’t senseless, describing the times of communism from a day to day perspective. Also the use of the piano is interesting, this was the main instrument in that band and I think it’s very unique how Grzegorz Ciechowski did it.

Of course there are many other interesting bands worth mention here, I would love to read which are yours! Also this article is just my opinion about music and bands, so feel free to discuss differences in the comments 😊

I also leave here my last find, band called Cloud Nothings, I simply felt in love with them :D

1. Do you think it’s good to classify music by genres? Don’t you think that this term “alternative” is a synonym of “interesting”?
2. Do you like alternative rock? If yes, what are your favourite bands? If you don’t, what rejects you?
3. What makes, in your subjective opinion, alternative music 'alternative'? Why do you think this term came out?