Being a fan of democracy, I followed the uprisings of Arab Spring rather closely. It felt good to see what I believed to be a legitimate revolt against a tyrannical government. The readings during week 9 changed my perspective. As the Egyptians are beginning to riot once again because of political unrest, I am forced to re-think things. Were the Arab Spring uprisings a child of the digital divide? Since the majority of citizens in those countries do not have Internet access, were a select few pulling the strings of discord; manipulating the rest of the world into believing that their revolt was a good thing? When we examine online identity in conjunction with the digital divide, questions begin to arise from the ether. Are these online identities simply the alter ego of a person or persons trying to change their society as their ethical beliefs see fit? Only time will tell.
Perhaps we, as a people, need to step back a few feet and try to understand others a little better. I do not generally philosophize about things, but this class has changed my way of thinking as of late. I am starting to see that conflict is not created out of hate; conflict is created from a lack of understanding for one another. The cosmopolitan views of Kwame Anthony Appiah illustrated this quite clearly for me. If more societies, countries, and most importantly people would just take the time to understand the "enemy", we just might find the cohesion the world is so desperately seeking.
We all view artificial intelligence with fascination and awe. Why is this? What do we gain from artificial intelligence? Before this class, I was one of those people who thought artificial intelligence is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now I am having second thoughts. The mere thought of machines thinking and acting for themselves just to make our lives easier makes me cringe. Pranav Mistry expressed that technology will allow us to become more human; this disturbs me. How can we become more human when we rely more and more on artificial intelligence to guide us? At what point will we cease thinking for ourselves and let the machines take over? The movie Terminator may be more real that we could ever imagine.
As this class slowly comes to a close, I have learned more about my own ethical beliefs than I would have ever thought possible. Whoever coined the phrase, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" was very wrong.
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