STS-3094B Diversity and Technology

I have always been passionate about the role language plays in a person's life.  In my family, I was the first person to be born in the United States, and my parents made sure I was raised "All-American."  As they learned about American culture, I was raised in it.  I wasn't taught to cook adobo or speak Cebuano or stay in touch with my heritage.  My parents would always speak to me in Cebuano, but always expected me to reply in English.  I grew up with the ability to understand what my parents told me, but without the ability to make them understand everything I told them.  Much of my life was underscored by this jarring disconnect. Eventually, I was able to work my way into broken but understandable Cebuano, but even still I find language to be one of the most interesting and abstract ideas I have put thought into.  My senior English project in high school addressed language barriers, and I wanted to bring back a lot of the powerful se...

In the Harvard case, lacking context makes it hard to determine who is right.  However, as you go deeper into the case, it becomes increasingly clear there is no hard evidence in the plaintiff's favor.  What this case seems like is an instance of faulty causality, where the lower population of Asian students at Harvard is framed as a lower population of students because they are Asian.  While it is easy to complain that there were qualified Asian students with high GPAs and test scores, there is an admissions process for a reason - you won't get into the school just because you meet a benchmark.  Furthermore, looking at the case from this perspective, it can feel as though the accusation is naive to factors outside of intelligence that impact school performance.  Coming back to an old source ( Questioning the 3D Printing Revolution ) from last blog post, " marginalized people have always created goods, products, arts, platforms and businesses,...

Updates #1: Possible ways to address diversity in the field of natural language processing (NLP): Implementing an Institutional Review Board (IRB) has not yet been considered in the field of NLP, but is a generally fit way to address potential and current ethical problems. Directly conducting some form of research with people (best from diverse backgrounds) would not only personalize the algorithms behind NLP, but also open up ethical discussions around the technology as a result of the direct involvement of human subjects. Implementation of vernacular would make it more natural and inclusive. The people that would be most affected by these suggestions would generally be people who speak in heavy vernacular or who speak the processed language as a second language.  I believe that is what is most up in the air in the field of NLP.  As with any emerging technology, the developers end up holding a social responsibility, dictating how this technology will be us...

Print the Legend  and Questioning the 3D Printing Revolution  contain different - though not entirely opposing - perspectives on the social significance of manufacturing made accessible. One consistency between the media is the contrast within a factory floor.  Ansh Patel talks about the distinct segmentation in a printer factory.  On the design side, the space is described as having a "sanitized aesthetic," while the manufacturing side was considerably less clean.  This divide was embellished with not only a glass wall, but a clear demographic difference as well: the design side was populated with young white men while the manufacturing side was nearly entirely people of color and women.  While this is not a major talking point in the documentary, the context the article provides makes the visual more evident. Conversely, a major topic in the movie that does not come up in the article is the gun controversy.  Cody Wilson, a strong proponent o...

The technology that I have been grappling with and looking to examine more is natural language processing.  It was part of the product pivot in my internship last semester.  We were aiming to create an application that would act as a total assistant in meetings, automating as many processes as possible to ensure that all you have to worry about while executing your meeting is executing your meeting.  This is what I see as the power of natural language processing.  Computers know how to calculate and simulate and compile but what we need is for technology to understand how to do those without translation on the part of the user. A software we commonly used was otter.ai, an artificial intelligence program that would use natural language processing to transcribe your audio recorded meetings.  We used this because it removed the need for note taking, it removed the disheartening moments of losing that idea because no one can remember it. ...

One artifact that caught my eye was the second picture, which showed an emergency medical response team of six.  The caption describes the team's borough as "diverse," but the image is of an only-caucasian team.  The reason this picture out of all of them caught my eye is that I believe this is the primary type of racism that is prevalent today.  It is a quieter version of racism, but no less harmful.  It is the idea that white is normal or pure. The next prevalent piece  was the New York Health poster advertising against sugary drinks.  At the top, a strong font shouts, "ARE YOU POURING ON THE POUNDS ?"  While, in broad strokes, I agree with the sentiment of keeping in mind how sugary drinks play into your health, I think this much more for the dangers of diabetes and dental problems.  It is blatantly ignorant to shame body image instead of calling for better bodily health.

For this exercise, Shehara was my partner, putting forward Augmented Reality as a technology and her age as a salient social identity because of that odd "in-between" of being 20. While it is a different age group,  How Augmented Reality Can Assist Aging Adults  by Taylor Mitchell talks about how this technology can aid the elderly.  While so far AR has mostly been used as an attraction for casual mobile games and apps, this article points out that those with neurodegenerative diseases can benefit from having a mixed reality environment that would provide them with necessary reminders.  Mitchell points out the ease of the user experience of this technology, citing this as another reason it would appeal to the elderly. The common uses of augmented reality and the possible use proposed here reminded me think of how infomercial products are criticized for only being useful in outlandish situations when in fact most of these products are meant for people wi...

Young Justice took the sidekicks of the iconic heroes of the Justice League and gave them their own team, aptly named Young Justice.  As sidekicks, their missions were generally of a lower scope than those of the Justice League, until the 20th episode, "Coldhearted."   In this episode, the sidekicks are given a chance to rejoin their mentors and team up with the Justice League, except for Kid Flash, who is instead tasked with transporting a heart from Boston to Seattle within four hours.  After facing diversions, Kid Flash barely makes it on time and is told that he has been carrying a heart meant for a queen. It was an odd twist to me.  It felt as though this information was supposed to spur more urgency in the scene or to justify Kid Flash missing out on an important team up to him.  There is nothing wrong with writing a plot around saving a queen, but to withhold that information to be dramatically revealed later was just putting a hat on a hat. ...

What’s your name and major? My name is Rafael de Leon and I am a second-year Computer Science major. Why are you interested in Diversity and Technology? I am taking this course because Diversity cannot be an afterthought in technological use and advances.  There is a lot of room for growth in Diversity given the rapid pace and privatized nature of the tech empire right now, and if we don't pay attention to those in minorities of any kind, we allow these groups to be systematically alienated and neglected again.  Racism, sexism, and other types of discrimination and harassment have taken a different form that is no less damaging than before.  What we fail to consider when we as engineers create is equally as important to what we do consider. Which  field trips and guest speakers from last year  most interest you? Can you suggest any other field trips or guest speakers? Feel free to use the   D&T Resource List   to get more idea...