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There are obviously many ethical, social and moral issues associated with online censorship by the government. First and for most is the limitation it puts on the freedom of expression. Second, it restricts people’s access to materials on the Internet, which is against the Internet’s fundamental idea of sharing. Third, it signifies government’s increasing control over its citizens.

From a government’s standpoint, there are reasons for controlling its citizens’ Internet usage. Social and political instability is a government’s worst nightmare, which is often the result of spreading discontent among the population. As the Internet becomes an increasingly popular tool for people to communicate, it also becomes the breeding ground for such discontent. But if this is a global phenomenon, why are some governments, such as the ones in China and the Arab world, so worried and resort to online censorship while other governments seem less affected? In China, people are mostly aware of government’s tight control over traditional news outlets such as television and newspapers. Therefore, they tend to view the Internet news as more genuine source of information, the less official looking the better. As a result, the government feels increasingly losing control: all their address to outside accusation sounds like cover ups. Sadly, instead of rebuilding the credibility of official news outlets by increasing transparency, the government decided to tighten its control over the online informal news outlets. In the Arab world, the impact of social media poses a more immediate threat to the regimes and the stability of the region. As stated in the article The truth about Twitter, Facebook and the uprisings in the Arab world, pictures and videos posed on social media sites including facebook and twitter have contributed to the revolutions in significant ways. Some people even called the Tunisian revolution “the twitter revolution”.

In order to exercise online censorship, China built the “Great Firewall of China”, which blocks access to facebook, twitter, youtube along with many other sites that contains “sensitive material”. Governments in the Arab world, with less resources, often operates on a smaller scale. The article mentioned above states that, “the Tunisian authorities attempted to harass those posting on Facebook. If they became aware of you on Facebook they would try to divert your account to a fake login page to steal your password.”

Compared to the measures mentioned above, a “more polite” way of exercising Internet censorship is to ask the technology companies to take down materials they deem inappropriate. In my opinion, it would be unethical and immoral for a company to follow these requests. The mission of tech companies should be promoting Internet access not restricting them. If the companies lose their independence from the government, the Internet environment we enjoy today may soon disappear.

Luckily, online censorship measures such as Firewall can never block all Internet traffic. There are tons of tools that can circumvent such restrictions. They are even publicly advertised on Baidu, the Chinese Internet search engine. I think these tools are neither unethical nor illegal. The tools provide services that help their users use the Internet to a fuller extend. Online censorship is about blocking access to certain materials on the Internet not making accessing these materials illegal. Therefore, these circumventing tools are not breaking any laws. I think it is important that governments exercising online censorship understand the unique nature of Internet communication and see it as a channel for listening to their citizens’ concerns, instead of trying to control it with elaborate measures. Technology companies should also play a more active role in defending against limitations of freedom of speech and maintaining a censor-free Internet environment.

 

 

 

Reading11

Artificial intelligence or AI has great influence on the future, not just in the field of computer science but human life in general. Because of this technology companies such as Google and Facebook take great interests in AI research and compete fiercely for AI startups. In pop culture, Artificial Intelligence is represented by the likes of the Terminator and Samantha from Her. The textbook definition, on the other hand, is much less romanticized. According to the article What is artificial intelligence?, “artificial intelligence is a sub-field of computer science. Its goal is to enable the development of computers that are able to do things normally done by people — in particular, things associated with people acting intelligently. ” The article also introduces the distinction of two AI theories: strong AI vs. weak AI. Strong AI aims at simulating human reasoning; weak AI aims at simulating human behavior but tells us nothing about how human thinks.

 

Many interesting developments in the field of artificial intelligence have brought us machines such as Deep Blue that defeated human players in the game of chess, IBM Watson that first appeared on Jeopardy and is now helping out in the field of diagnostic and, most recently, AlphaGo that won at the game of Go. The trend in the field shows that computers’ dominance over human being is expanding from areas requiring its traditional strong suits of logic thinking and mathematical reasoning into areas where human beings are thought to excel. Compared to chess players, Go players rely heavily on intuitions, which makes AlphaGo’s recent victory all the more significant.

So what is the implication of machines’ victories over human beings in these games? Should they be regarded as proof of viability of Artificial intelligence? To answer these questions we have to remember that the aim of Artificial intelligence is to simulate human thinking with computers. Machine beating human player at these games certainly makes exciting news stories, but a game of chess or Go is not a valid measure for human intelligence. Instead, we need valid measurement to detect artificial intelligence. The most prominent measurement of such is the Turing test which was proposed by Alan Turing in his 1950 paper. As stated in the article The truth about the Turing Test, “Turing had wearied of the interminable debates about whether machines could really think. The question we should be asking, he said, is whether they can behave the same way a thinking person does.” In other word, an AI is considered to have passed the Turing test if it can fool us into thinking that it is human.

The opposition to the Turing test points out that it is possible for a machine to pass the Turing test even if it does not have real understandings. This is the central point of the Chinese Room argument. But this argument shows the distinction between strong AI and weak AI instead of challenging the validity of the Turing test. It raises the question of whether true understanding is necessary for intelligence. However, it seems that whether the machine will pass the Turing test depends very much on the type of question it is asked. Also, the test assumes that we as entities of human intelligence have the natural and mysterious ability to recognize one another, which is never proven. Therefore, I think the Turing test is valid as a pragmatic measurement of intelligence, slightly better than chess games. We need more understanding of human intelligence in order to come up with a better measurement for artificial intelligence.

If a valid test is devised and a machine is able pass it, we have arrived at the era of artificial intelligence. There will be huge ethical implications: there will have to be debate about whether having a mind qualifies the computer for human rights. Our interactions with computers will change completely; we may have to think twice before switching off its power. On the other hand, the arrival of artificial intelligence will also shaken our superiority as human beings. Maybe we are just biological computers. Our sense of uniqueness and individuality will suffer. So far all these ethical concerns cannot stop our curiosity about artificial intelligence. Maybe as artificial intelligence research hits its milestones one after another, we can gain more insights into what life would be like with AI and adjust.