A New Kind Of Computer Science Major Delves Into How Technology Is Reshaping Society
In an upper-level seminar on artificial intelligence, Occidental College professor Justin Li started a discussion outside the realm of a typical computer science class.
Should a self-driving car, if unable to brake in time, be programmed to steer into a wall to avoid crashing into pedestrians — perhaps killing a single person in the vehicle in order to save five on the street?
One question led to another. Is it morally OK to choose five lives over one? How about 10? Who gets to make this decision anyway — the programmer, the government, the person who can afford a self-driving car?
Occidental established a computer science major this fall, one of numerous liberal arts colleges to do so in recent years. They've popped up at Reed College in Oregon and Whitman College in Washington state.
These schools better known for teaching history and philosophy are shaping their programs to draw on their strengths. They don't just focus on the vocational or on abstract algorithms. As artificial intelligence and automation increasingly enter everyday life, their courses push students to examine how modern technology both changes and challenges society.
In Maine, Bates College started a multidisciplinary Digital and Computational Studiesprogram, with aims including "to interrogate the values and assumptions of a digitized world" and "increase understanding of the power and limitations of computers in solving problems."
At Occidental, where a young Barack Obama discovered political science, teaching students how to code is the straightforward part, said Li, a cognitive science professor who led the design of the major. Classes also push them to grapple with the inequalities and philosophical dilemmas that technology is creating out in the world. Such social discussions are woven into every lesson.
"The goal is to make students consider the real-world implications of what they are doing — that their code is not just abstract problem-solving but may have positive or negative impacts on real people," Li said.
Stephanie Angulo, a junior, says it's that sort of approach that drew her to Occidental rather than an engineering school. She hopes to break glass ceilings one day as a tech leader and wanted to study somewhere that would also teach her how to write better.
"You have to think about how you communicate your ideas or how you think about problems," said Angulo, who has interned at Facebook and is studying computer science and philosophy. "My friends and I talk about these issues pretty much every day, whereas I've noticed the people I've worked with who are more engineering-focused don't tend to think about these questions as much."
The broader way of looking at computer science also has the benefit of perhaps drawing new people in to help narrow tech's much-discussed diversity and gender gaps, said Andrea Danyluk, a Williams College professor and member of the Liberal Arts Computer Science Consortium. "We have the art major who needs to take a science course or a history student who discovers this is actually kind of cool," she said.
As more multidisciplinary programs emerge, some in the field caution against taking too much focus away from the fundamentals of computer science. "You need a very solid core," said Kim Bruce, who started the departments at Williams and at Pomona College.