IT to Determine Social Change - Essay Example

1) Information Technology determines contemporary social change.' Discuss giving examples. The epochal periods of the stone, bronze, iron and silicon ages represent the proclivity and accelerating capability of our species at tool making. We use some animals as tools: horses and camels for transportation, dogs for hunting, and oxen or carabaos for cultivation. A first great leap that set us apart from other primates was our ability to create and control fire. Fire disinfects food; fire molds metals and transforms other materials. Like the sun, fire is energy, fire by itself is a tool, and energy is required to make and run other tools. In the current century, we started tapping the celluloid, uranium, electromagnetism, and now the photon. To neutralize harmful germs, we even employ the services of the bacterium. Another great invention is mathematics, derived naturally from the Homo Sapiens' ability to conceive quantity. Spectacular tool making is not possible without the continuous development of mathematics. Our species has gone this far, equipped with only a few pounds of brain matter, a small and frail anatomy, and natural senses limited to a mere five (sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing). Given these leaps, it has been necessary to come up with a set of social codes to regulate behavior and ensure continuous order. The law, it is said, operates to regulate behavior and maintain the cohesiveness of a given society. In order to maintain its role as bulwark, it capitalizes on and gains credence from the idea that there is but one set of "correct" rules and that legal decisions are but logical outcomes of tested principles that are empirically-replicable. Perhaps there are very few modern developments that have posed a challenge to this notion of the law and the legal system than the advent of the Internet. Precisely because of the uniqueness of the medium and the vastness of its breadth, there has been great difficulty imposing regulatory mechanisms on its use - thereby leading, in many cases, to its abuse. There can be no denying that information technology plays an important role in the molding of social values and in the legitimization of personal perceptions. In the United States, 98% have at least one television, 70% have more than one television, 70% have cable, and 51% of households with children have a computer. (Paik, 1994) For example, on the issues surrounding Internet obscenity, Petrie (1997) found that "because the Internet is a unique communications technology, it does not fit squarely into the conceptual scheme of traditional obscenity law." (p. 638). In a nutshell, the Internet, also called the information superhighway, is a communications network wherein computers from all over the world may instantaneously communicate and exchange images with each other through the benefit of a modem and an Internet Service Provider. There is no one central source that can filter out images or regulate the flow of information. The internet cannot be shut down at will. On the issue of hate speech, The danger posed by the internet is that more often than not, it is the medium of choice of racial supremacist groups who thrive on the relative safety and untraceability that the Internet provides. Hier (2000) presents three reasons: First, there exists a considerable gap between the public images that racial supremacist groups attempt to present in the Internet and a far less benign image that emerges upon closer analysis; second, exemplified by the Freedom-site, the internet has facilitated a greater degree of solidarity between racial supremacist organizations; and third, given the impersonal nature of the internet, there exists a certain degree of danger that otherwise ordinary citizens will become more susceptible to the ideology of racial supremacism. (p. 471) The problem is not merely that the technology allows for unprecedented reach and scope. More significantly, the problem is that the law and all its traditional structures are ill-equipped to handle this revolutionary form of communication. On the one hand, the communication is so temporal and ephemeral. It is entirely possible to not to be able to track where it originated, or control where it will eventually go. The author may choose to remain undisclosed and stay forever undisclosed. It reaches a myriad of countries in a matter of seconds, with a simple press of the button - making issues of "venue" and "jurisdiction" (usually anchored on the question of where the offense took place), problematic. On the other hand, it is undeniable that the injury wrought by, for instance, internet hate speech on a particular minority group, or the debilitating effects of internet child pornography, are as real and as concrete as in other media. Stereotyping is likewise a problem. The website Media Awareness Network (Internet, 2006) states that "stereotypes act like codes that give audiences a quick, common understanding of a person or group of people-usually relating to their class, ethnicity or race, gender, sexual orientation, social role or occupation." Gender and ethnic stereotypes are reinforced. (Internet, 2004). This precisely is the problematique brought about by the interface between the law and Internet technology. Indeed, the swiftness with which technology has grown and develop is overwhelming and breathtaking. It used to be that children could only read books or play outside with other children. It was a simpler world and there was less reason to worry. Then television came and parents - particularly working parents - were alarmed at the barrage of information that could be absorbed by their curious mind of their young child. At the dawn of the internet age, we saw how technology can truly revolutionize not only the way we receive and provide information or the way we communicate, but also the way we live our lives, the way we define ourselves, the way we perceive the world. While children can do research for their science project over the internet, so too can they discover the recipe for making bombs. So too can they become involve with communities that promote anorexia or bulimia. So too can they be exposed to neo-nazi organizations that romanticize separatism and supremacy. So too can they learn about sexual fetishes and predilections, and watch shocking or titillating visual images. That is why it cannot be gainsaid that the law must intervene and promote a measure of reasonable regulation. 2) Use Weber's rationalisation theory to explain the widespread use of "artificial intelligence." According to Wikipedia (Internet, 2006), Max Weber's rationalization theory "refers to increasing human mastery over the natural and social environment. In turn, these changes in social structure have changed human character through changing values, philosophies, and beliefs." Weber maintains that capitalism is a rational system in that it reduces uncertainty and increases predictability and uses increasing amounts of non-human technologies. (Internet, 1999) This is, perhaps, where the issue of artificial intelligence comes in. Artificial intelligence is essentially the process of making intelligent machines, and engineering intelligent computer programs. Says Cawsey (1998): Artificial intelligence is a broad field and means different things to different people. It is concerned with getting computers to do tasks that require human intelligence. However, having said that, there are many tasks that we might reasonably think require intelligence - such as complex arithmetic - which computers can do very easily. Conversely, there are many tasks that people do without even thinking - such as recognizing a face - which are extremely difficult to automate. AI is concerned with these difficult tasks, which require complex and sophisticated reasoning processes and knowledge. What is positive about this phenomenon is that it is indicative of the incessant advance of society's productive forces. They represent the new products from natural society going over to the realm of class society. The new breed is even capable of running the whole production outfit, thereby freeing the capitalists to concentrate more in their main function, i.e., regeneration of capital. What is clearly negative, however, is that it warns of greater contradictions and stratification in the ranks of the proletariat. The misery of those edged out in the so-called labor market increases geometrically in relation to the arithmetical rise of the technological experts in the ranks of the proletariat. To complicate matters, several of the technical experts and intellectuals fall into the army of unemployed. Closely monitored today are qualitative changes in the character of the work force. The increasing technological content today is requiring a new breed of labor force. Engineers, architects, doctors, and other technological experts are replacing the mass of the proletariat in capitalist firms. The technological experts exhibit the character of a "new" proletariat, a highly educated proletariat. One technological expert can shove tens or even hundreds of workers to the expanding service sector or to the ranks of the unemployed. In the book Artificial Intelligence: Modern Approach by Russell and Norvig (2002), "problem-solving agents" were described as agents that "decide what to do by finding sequences of actions that lead to desirable states." And this is of course consistent with Weber's theory involving mastery of the environment. Ultimately, that is the objective of artificial intelligence: to decrease the margin of error until it is almost nil and perfection is achieved. Our seemingly inexhaustible ability to make tools is not only changing the world. The species is capable of changing its own self, its very nature as species, its being-in a conscious and deliberate way. This capacity is what really sets it apart from all known life forms. Works Cited Adolescent and parent perceptions of media influence on adolescent sexuality. (2004). Available at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2248/is_154_39/ai_n6364178. 2004. Last visited November 8, 2006. Cawsey, Alison. (1998). The Essence of Artificial Intelligence. Prentice Hall. Hier, S. (2000). The Contemporary Structure of Canadian Racial Supremacism: Networks, Strategies and New Technologies. Canadian Journal of Sociology / Cahiers canadiens de sociologie, 25(4) (Autumn), pp. 471-494. Max Weber. (2007). Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber. Last visited January 6, 2007. Norvig, Peter and Russell, Stuart. (2002). Artificial Intelligence: Modern Approach. Prentice Hall. Paik, H., & Comstock, G. (1994). The effects of television violence on antisocial behavior: a meta-analysis. Communication Research, 21, 516-546. Petrie, S. (1997). Indecent Proposals: How Each Branch of the Federal Government Overstepped Its Institutional Authority in the Development of Internet Obscenity Law. Stanford Law Review, 49(3), pp. 637-665 Rationalization and Bureaucracy. (1999). Available at http://uregina.ca/gingrich/o14f99.htm. Last visited: January 6, 2007. Media Stereotyping. (2006) Available at www.media-awareness.ca. Last visited: January 6, 2007. Read More