Final Exam Review History of Science 150

1. Format of the Exam

90 minutes, on canvas 12:25pm December 18. You are welcome to bring notes to the exam, so you could start by filling out this sheet with notes from lectures and the readings!

Like the mid-term, the final exam will have two kinds of questions. 1) Multiple choice questions examining your knowledge of key concepts, terms, historical developments, and contexts 2) Short answer questions in which ask you to draw on things you’ve learned in the course (from lecture, readings, videos) to craft a short argument in a brief essay expressing your informed issue on a historical question

2. Sample Questions

Multiple Choice:

Mina Rees was involved in (and wrote about) which of the following computing projects?

A) Silicon Valley start-ups in the dot-com period B) Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine C) Works Projects Administration Tables Project D) Federal funding for computing research after WWII

Short Answer:

(Your answers should be between 100-200 words, and keep to specifics (events, machines, developments, people) that demonstrate your knowledge of materials covered from the course)

A) What are two historical factors important to the development of Silicon Valley’s technology industry after World War II?

B) In what ways did the field of programming change (in terms of its status and workers) between World War II and the late 1960s?

3. Topics to Review: Below, is a list of ideas to review for the final exam, which covers material through the entire course. You should review in particular, lecture notes, O’Mara’s The Code and other course readings provided on Canvas.

In addition to these topics, please make note of the timelines that were provided for Units 1-3 and are available on Canvas

Review sheet 1 Final Exam Review History of Science 150

Week-by-week Topics to Review

Week 2 (“Computing what”)

o Some reasons generally, why good quality numbers were needed in the 18th and 19th centuries o Gaspard de Prony’s computation work and how it was organized o The persistence of Human computing and who, in general, did this kind of work o The relevancy of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations o Charles Babbage’s Two Engines and what’s different between them o And Ada Lovelace’s developments o Alan Turing’s 1936 paper and the idea of a machine that could compute anything o What ways did social scientists use statistics in the 19th and early 20th century? (and what is “eugenics”? o Hollerith Tabulator and the 1890 Census o Police Statistics and Khalil Muhammad’s ideas about where “big data” came from o How progressive reformers and sociologists like W.E.B Dubois used statistics to represent social problems in the late 19th and early 20th century

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review: o How did the routinization and mechanization of calculation change its cultural meaning? o How does the “deskilling” of a task relate to the “mechanization” of that task? o What is the relationship between data, government, and social science? What are some ways that social science used statistics, and what were some problematic uses? o What does turn-of-the century (c 1900) police tech have to do with facial recognition?

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Week 3 (“Military Influences”)

o The effect of World War II on science and technology, primarily in the United States o Some machines built during World War II (what they are, and what they’re used for) in particular: § the ENIAC; the Enigma Bombe; Mark 1 Analog Naval Gun Direction / Fire control computer o The first programmers on the ENIAC: how did they get recruited to this work, and what was the character of this work o The relevancy of Cold War for early computing technologies § What were new funding agencies? § How was scientific advancement § The SAGE system • What was it, how was it used • How did it reflect the cultural anxieties of the cold war • How did it support new computer research and new ideas about computer users and interactive machines

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review:

o How did the support for computing technologies in World War II and the Cold War relate to the earlier tradition of state-supported computing? Was it wholly new, or did it build from it? o How did the threat of soviet attack shape Cold War computing, for instance, the idea of early distributed communications networks?

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Week 4 (“Emergence of Computing Businesses”)

o Some of the reasons why Silicon Valley and the electronics industry emerged: § Venture Capital (what is it, generally) § The Electronics industry • Vacuum tubes; The invention of the transistor; The Integrated circuit § Consumers • Who is buying early vacuum tubes? • Who is patronizing early transistor and integrated circuit (monolithic chip) businesses? • the military and radio hobbyists as both demanding consumers requiring high-quality products and as financial benefactors § Universities: • how are universities connected with new high-tech industries? o Sputnik – when and what was it § What effect does it have on federal policy in science and education § What institutions follow it (NASA and ARPA) § Why does ARPA come about, and what sorts of things it funds § Shift from applied technologies to support for research o The Military-Industrial Complex—what is it and how did President Eisenhower explain it in 1961 as a concern? o Project MAC § What kind of research did it support (User interface, timesharing, networking) § What kinds of problems inspired it? o Time-sharing, what, generally, is it? What motivated it? o User interface research: § What’s Sketchpad (Ivan Sutherland) and What was ? § What are two different ways of thinking of user-interfaces (e.g. as mirroring existing systems, or as requiring new things from people (like the Chord or mouse))

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review: o How is the role of the government in computing research and support for computer industries changing in the 1950s and 1960s?

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Week 5 (Finishing ARPA and “Programming Labor”)

o Computer science departments: what were some of the tensions and challenges in their development; where did they come from (what kinds of disciplines) and when generally are they starting up o ARPA as building from President Johnson’s policy of “Creative Centers of Excellence”) to connect university computer research centers o ARPAnet: § When is it emerging (late 1960s, early 1970s start is sufficient) § Early purposes and uses • “Resource Sharing” as an early, but largely unsuccessful idea for what the ARPAnet would be used for (for instance, as noted in the documentary I showed) § Packet switching (what is it) (check the documentary I showed in lecture) § Key features of ARPA: • Packet-switched networks • The Interface Message processor (dedicate machine for handling data transfers) o Early Innovators in Programming § Women’s role in programming • ENIAC programmers and their trajectories into programming and software design (Jean Bartik and Betty Holerton) § Grace Hopper • Hopper’s work on COBOL, and “compilers” § Margaret Hamilton’s work on “Software Engineering” and the MIT instrumentation lab o COBOL Programming Language § Purpose § Style compared to the other languages of the time, FORTRAN (More human like-language § The Organization that designed it—consortium of businesses and the Department of defense o The effects of the space race on computing: § Use of computers on board and in tracking space craft o Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson (Hidden Figures at NASA) and their trajectories, generally (Human computers to computer and engineering work) § The Context of Jim Crow as it shaped opportunities for education and high-tech work for the NASA workers at the West computing center o Main ideas of “When Computers were women”

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review: • How does ARPAnet reflect the Military-industrial-academic complex?

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• How does the introduction of more “English-like” programming languages affect the dynamics of the programming profession? Who does it make computers more accessible to, and whose jobs might it jeopardize?

Week 6 “Computerization”

o What kind of companies made computers in the 1950s and 1960s (what industries are they coming from) o Who was buying computers in the 1950s and 1960s and how is government’s position as consumer changing? o What kind of industries are using computers, and for what purposes? I emphasize two o IBM’s marketing at the 1964 worlds fair and the in the 1967 advertisement “The Paperwork Explosion” How does this present computing as a different kind of tool for business? § What problems are computers being presented as solving? § What symbols and ideas are they working with? o Project Cybersyn § What its used for, and why § Where, and what is its context? o Labor’s response to automation: § What are their critiques and their strategies? o Greenberger: What does he think computers will do for the US economy? o What is the “information utility” idea?

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review:

• How does computing change in its status in business in the 1950s and 1960s? What effect do you think this has on the workers who are involved with computers? • In what ways was the depiction of computing in the economy presented by Greenberger different and similar to the way you understand computing and the economy today? • Compare and contrast Greenberger’s depiction of the computerized economy of the future, and the Cybersyn System—what’s similar, what’s different?

Review sheet 6 Final Exam Review History of Science 150

[Note Mid-term covered through Week 6]

Week 7 Against the Machine

• Critiques of computing and technology in the 1950s and 1960s • Changing Cultural meaning of computers in the US in the 1960s and 1970s • Mario Savio and Burning Punched cards • Use of computers in the Vietnam War o Operation Igloo White • Madison’s role in anti-Vietnam War Protests o Army Math Research Center o Sterling Hall Bombing • Counter-cultural Computing and the changes to the cultural meaning of computers o Community Memory o Whole Earth Catalog • Educational computing and “computing citizens” • PLATO system o When, when generally; its purposes o What were some of its popular uses • BASIC o Where, when, generally; its purpose

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review:

How did the cultural meaning of computing change between the 1960s and the 1970s? What kinds of new users came to interact with computers?

How does the role of teachers, users, and counter cultural activists in computing’s cultural history change our understanding of where innovation comes from? Do all technological revolutions come from businesses or from military labs?

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Week 8 The Soul of a New Machine

• Personal computers: o First Generation of “minicomputers”/”microcomputers” and the first “microprocessors” (Intel 4004) o Hobbyist machines and Kit Computers, who were they for, what could they do § (1975) § Apple 1 (1976) • Social, Cultural context of the San Francisco Bay area in the 1970s and its relation to personal computing o o Xerox Parc o People’s Computer Company • Computer Lib / Dream Machines (1974) • “Techno-utopianism” and the “Personal Computing Revolution” • Critiques of “Personal Computing Revolution” (historic and your own) • Apple Computers as product of this period • Micro-Soft / o (Early product, connection to Altair 8800) o MS-DOS (Microsoft Operating System) o The “Open Letter to Hobbyists” • IBM PC Computer (1981) o ‘Wintel Standard’: Intel chips plus Windows operating software o IBM PC “Clones” • Apple Macintosh and the 1984 “1984” Superbowl Advertisement o What does it mean, who is it critiquing, what is its symbolism

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review:

What was the “personal computing revolution”, how did it build on the cultural changes in the meaning of the computer during the counter-culture, the social upheavals of the Vietnam era; and how was it used as a marketing device for the early generation of personal computers, especially Apple?

What were the social, cultural, and technological conditions that supported the development of personal computers and their businesses? How did they depend upon earlier technologies and social developments (like research into user-interfaces in the 1960s?)

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Week 9 Going Online

• Basic timeline of Modems o Significance of the 1968 “Carterphone” decision by the FCC • The Net of the 1980s and early 1990s o What kinds of services exist (commercial, amateur-run) o What do people use them for (news, e-mail, accessing etc….) • BBS Systems o Timeline, culture, visual look § Pseudonyms, connections with in-person communities o Difference from “the internet” and commercial services (Compuserve, AOL) o Social advocacy and BBSs: Echo BBS, AIDS General Information System o Ways of connecting them: FidoNet, Afronet • Basic timeline of online computing in the US, o When are Americans starting to get online, what kinds of things are they using net services for • Cyberpunk literature and its connection to online culture • Basic technical concepts for the ARPAnet/Internet o Packet switching o TCP/IP Protocols o Aloha Method o Domain concept • Internet as a network of networks (Inter-networking) o SRI Packet Radio experiment, 1977 • 1980s Institutions and funding of the internet infrastructure o CSNet o NSF-Net • 1994 onwards: privatization of internet backbone • Information Superhighway Speech o Metaphors o Government role o Debates over government role: ’s critique of the Superhighway metaphor • World Wide Web o Where it comes from § Berners-Lee, CERN…

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review:

How did the US Federal government’s role in the internet change between 1970-2000, in terms of funding?

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How is the organization and culture of online systems in the 1980s different from the 1990s, or the first decade of 2000s? How are BBSs organized in a fundamentally different way than AOL or Facebook?

Week 10 The Information Society

• Japanese Fifth Generation Computer project • Vannevar Bush’s MEMEX device o Proposed in “As we May Think”, a response to problems of scientific information overload in the 1940s • Pre-history of “information overload” § Printing press and the way scholars responded in the 1500s

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review:

How do media and information technologies both create new social challenges related to information (quantity, quality, speed) and provide methods to mitigate those challenges?

How did the Japanese Fifth Generation computer project differ from US Government initiatives to support computer developments?

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Week 11 Governing the Internet

• Political ideas about the role of government in the internet-age economy of the 1990s o Alignment of democrats and republicans towards pro-entrepreneurship, pro- business, low regulation model of the internet economy • “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” • Electronic Frontier Foundation and its early areas of political lobbying (limited state involvement on the internet, protecting privacy protections, defending hackers) • Silicon Valley’s Politics (The “Californian Ideology” by Richard Barbrook and Andy Cameron, 1995) o Combination of: § View of limited government role in the economy (regulation, policing online; view government as inefficient, cynical about state as an agent of change and the marketplace as superior) § Pro-entrepreneurship § Technological utopianism/technological solutionism, following on the ideals of technology-facilitated social change of the 1970s (the revolution) • Telecommunications Act of 1996 o “Must-Carry rules” o De-regulation of telecommunications ownership • Cryptography and encryption o Why is it a political issue? o Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) § Method for encrypting communication over the internet by sharing a “public key” through which others encrypt messages to you; which only you can decode using a “private key” o Clipper Chip § “escrowed model” of encryption (government and a trusted third party have parts of a key that can be combined to unencrypt private communications) § Cypher-punks and techno-libertarians activate against clipper chip • Other flashpoints of technology and government in the 1990s: o Napster and intellectual property • Y2K o Nature of the problem (COBOL story) o Cultural products surrounding the solution (community based mediation efforts, books, seminars, self-help books for families) o Social shift, as Americans recognize that software is the “infrastructure of the Infrastructure” (software underlies all kinds of physical systems • Mitigating Y2k Risk o Huge cost to businesses (but even bigger risk!)

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o Labor markets for globalized coding workforce: § Body-shopping § Outsourcing o Y2K Act and Limiting Liability • Globalization of coding work grows with Y2k

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review:

What kinds of issues inspired Silicon Valley’s politics in the 1990s?

How did Silicon Valley’s politics represent both continuity with and a departure from earlier political visions of computer technology (e.g. compared to the counterculture figures working on Community Memory?)

What were some of the effects of Y2K on American’s views about computer technology?

How were efforts to mitigate the coding errors behind the Y2k issue connected to changes in the global labor force for coding?

Review sheet 12 Final Exam Review History of Science 150

Week 12 Social Media

• The Dot-com bubble o What kinds of companies are involved o Basic timeline, Netscape to Pets.com o “Irrational Exuberance” o Causes (generally) • Web 2.0 o Sorts of features associated with it o Websites connected with early Web 2.0 • Early Social Networking sites (SNS) / Social Media Sites and basic timeline o “Yet another Social Networking Site” (YASNS) o Early history of MySpace vs. Facebook: o Style and differences in network makeup between Myspace and Facebook (Open vs. Closed networks) o Dating websites connected to SNSs (e.g. Facesmash and Facebook) • Rise of Platform Businesses o Knowing about users, selling user data, o Platforms are “one-stop-shop” for identity management (e.g. using account for login, facebook account for login to third party sites; storying credit card information); provide apps, services, marketplaces o Surveillance Capitalism § Ability to know, predict, and also nudge users towards specific goods (through targeting ads) • Early ideas about social media and Democracy o The “Arab spring” § Tahrir Square and Facebook, Twitter § “Adhocracy” o Why does social media seem like a powerful force for democracy in this period, what are US commentators saying about it o Mark Zuckerberg Frames FB as a tool for speaking truth to power • Cambridge Analytica Scandal o Psychological Research data given to a political marketing company involved in Brexit and US Presidential Election o What the scandal does to American’s views on social media, platform businesses and their effects on democracy o Prehistory: the Simulmatics corporation in the 1960 Election o Facebook’s Emotional power and effects on public sphere: Siva Vaidhyanathan’s arguments

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review:

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How did views about the role of Facebook in society change over ten years?

What was the effect of the Arab Spring on US attitudes towards social media as a force for democracy?

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Week 13 Social Media and News Media (continued)

• Timeline of when news media goes online in the 1990s, rise of early start-up news websites, growth of FB and Twitter as news aggregators • Web 2.0 and news websites o Rough Timeline of “blogging” o Aggregator sites: § Digg, Reddit, Twitter o New sites stress commenting, upvoting, content management services as a marketable product • Time Magazine and the “year of you” 2006 • The “Paradox of Web 2.0”: o What are some of the negative effects of the democratization of the means of publication o Blurred boundary between: § News vs. opinion; § Content posted by users / bloggers without editorial input or fact checking vs. journalism • Social Networking Sites Grow as aggregators of news • Facebook’s “Trending stories” as an editorial product, but “black-boxed”: unclear how it is determined and by whom o Leads to accusations of anti-conservative bias in 2016, o 2016: change in procedures • Again, Siva Vaidhyanathan’s Arguments: o The forces that make Facebook good for political mobilization (algorithms favor emotional reaction) make it bad for deliberation and trustworthiness: § “It can be deployed effectively to move people to rise up against oppressive governments and it can be used just as effectively to move people to rise up against liberal … governments or in support of oppressive governments. Facebook destabilizes politics more than it enlightens or enhances deliberative politics” • Growth of informational “filter bubbles” as social networks become method for accessing news • Absence of editorial process leads to global spread of misinformation: Rohingya Genocide in Myanmar • 2020: New “fact-checking” processes on FB and Twitter, continued accusations of bias, misinformation, lack of editorial process • Consolidation of media companies and proliferation of “news deserts” unroll in parallel with internet-based news’s development

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• Misinformation is not just a product of the algorithms, but of changes in news media industry, and in the declining value placed on news media associated with Web 2.0 (see slide 31 in 150.24)

Synthetic and Conceptual questions to think on as you review:

How might the decline of trust in traditional news media be connected to ideas like “techno- libertarianism”?

How is the spread of misinformation connected to developments in Blogging in the early 2000s?

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Week 14 Artificial and Artificial Injustice

• Enlightenment Automata o What were they, what were some examples o What were they for • 1940s-1950s Experiments with feedback and AI: o Norbert Wiener’s robot moth (just be familiar with it) o Claude Shannon’s Maze Runner • Alan Turing’s 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” • The “” or the “imitation game” • Connections between mind/brain sciences and in the 1940s-1960s o (Be aware that there are connections!) o Have an example: e.g. see slides 21-22 of Lecture 150.25 • Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence, 1956 • Point of the research: o More intuitive computers (Project MAC funding, connected with efforts to make computers more user-friendly) o Automating human tasks (for scientific work, for analyzing images, documents, etc.) • Chess/Jeopardy/Go/Video games like DOTA 2 as tasks for AI under development o What are some reasons Chess is popular as a task or “model problem” for AI systems under development? o 1997: Deep Blue Beats Garry Kasparov (former world champion) o How do these model problems speak to “intelligence” more broadly? • Expert Systems (basic idea) o Early Examples: MYCIN, PUFF, CONGEN o What sorts of contexts are they used in • Chatbots: ELIZA (1966) • “AI Winter” What does this mean? • Algorithms in our world: o Examples: o FICO credit Score o Social Welfare systems o (these can be done with or without computers, but key insight is that they automate a rules-based procedure for making judgments) o AI tends to affect marginalized populations, and misjudge them o Cyberpunk author William Gibson: “The future is here its just unevenly distributed” same is true about Dystopia • : emerges in the 1990s with growth in business data that is being unused • Stanford researchers in field called “Knowledge Discovery in Databases” start Google • “Recommendation engines” an important and popular early 2000s AI development (behind search page rankings, Netflix, Amazon product recommendations)

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• Neural nets (don’t need to know any specifics, just that they are based on a model of neurons and reinforcement learning) • Some problems of AI and Algorithmic Systems: o Opacity (hard to audit AI systems—why a certain decision was made by a computer system) o Garbage in/garbage out (bad and biased “Training data” can make biased AI systems—e.g. Facial recognition) o Up-steam problems: why are we making them in the first place; are the people who will be subject to them represented in the group that decides to make and implement them?

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