Week 1: Introduction to Computers and Society

Question 1

What are Lessig’s Four modalities, explain what its used for and an acronym to remember them.

Answer 1

Social Norms
Markets
Architecture
Law

These are four modalities of analysis when thinking about how technology and society interact with one another. The modalities themselves can also interact with one another.

Question 2

Explain each of Lessig’s four modalities

Answer 2

Social norms:
Human interactions with tech such as increased acceptance in ordering food online instead of cooking
Markets:
Commercial influences on tech, rise in streaming services due to their demand
Architecture:
Physical underlying infrastructure from buildings and layout of cities to telephone networks and internet cables.
Law:
Which laws are applicable to different technologies.

Question 3

Explain forecasting and then describe the two main traits

Answer 3

Forecasting is attempting to predict the future using the traits of those who were more successful at it from Phil Tetlock’s research.

The two main traits these people had were:

Triage:
Understanding not everything is predictable, a coin flip is completely random but the outcome of a sports match depends on multiple factors.

Sub-dividing problems:
Breaking down a problem down into smaller components, the sports match could be broken down into comparing individual players, and then their teamwork skills etc

Question 4

Describe important forecasting traits aside from the main two

Answer 4

Adopting outside views: fresh insight, thinking like an outsider
Balance: no recency bias (anchoring on newer info) and no primacy bias (anchoring on older info)
Degrees of doubt: giving a prediction better than 50/50
Confidence: consistently being over or under confident affects results
Look at your own errors: Learning from mistakes and understanding biases
Teams: speaking increases understanding
Error balancing: Practise forecasting