Technology Analysis

Length: 1,000–1,500 words (approx. 4–6 double-spaced pages)

First draft is due Oct 7, end of the day

Final draft is due Oct 21, end of the day

You will complete this assignment individually.

Learning Objectives

By completing this assignment, you will be able to:

  1. Articulate an ethics framework of your own, grounded in an established framework and in your own positionality, and explain what it makes visible and what it leaves out.
  2. Apply that framework to a specific computing technology, identifying the values embedded in its design and the stakeholders its design affects.
  3. Construct independent, persuasive arguments on both sides of a genuine moral dilemma, and represent the strongest version of the position you do not hold.
  4. Recommend a defensible course of action, including concrete mitigations or alternatives, and identify which actors have legitimate standing to decide.
  5. Practice argumentative academic writing with evidence, citation, and revision.

Overview

In Assignment 0 you described the vantage point from which you see computing. This assignment asks you to put that vantage point to work.

You will do two things. First, you will build an ethics framework of your own, starting from one (or more) of the Ethics Frameworks we covered in class and adapting it in light of your own identity, experience, and commitments. Second, you will use that framework to analyze a real technology that presents a moral dilemma, and take a position on whether it should be used.

The point of the framework is not to decorate the analysis. As we discussed in class, frameworks generate reasoning, not verdicts. A good paper will show the framework actually doing work: it should be possible for a reader to see why your analysis reaches the conclusions it does, and to imagine how a different framework would have surfaced different concerns.

Step 1: Build your Framework

Using as a reference the Ethics Frameworks we covered in class, you will develop your own framework that articulates your unique perspective on technology. Your ethics framework should be based on an existing framework and your own personal identity and experience in the world. Ultimately, your framework should be useful, and productive.

Start from an existing framework (or combine two — for example, a capability approach with a political-economy attention to ownership). Then make it yours by being explicit about:

  • What it centers. What is the first question your framework asks about a technology? Whose situation does it ask you to look at first?
  • Why you center that. Connect this to your positionality — to the background, experiences, and commitments you wrote about in Assignment 0. This is the part that makes the framework yours rather than a summary of a lecture slide.
  • What it does not see. Every framework has blind spots. A utilitarian frame can rationalize harm to a minority; a rights-based frame can stall in the face of tradeoffs between two rights; care ethics can be hard to scale to strangers. Naming your framework’s limits is a strength, not a concession.

A note on a failure mode we discussed in class: beware of framework shopping. If you pick the framework that delivers the verdict you already held, your reader will notice, and the analysis will not be persuasive. One good test: apply your framework honestly and see whether it makes any part of your initial position uncomfortable. If it does, write that down — that tension is often the most interesting paragraph in the paper.

Step 2: Pick Your Technology

You must anchor your paper in specific computing technology. For this assignment, you will choose a technology patent from Patent Public Search website. You can also check the Patents List page, with some patents I thought would be interesting for this paper. Patents are useful because they state, in the applicants’ own words, what the technology is for, which is often revealing. The patent you choose gives you and your reader a shared, concrete object to argue about.

A good choice is a technology where thoughtful people genuinely disagree. If you can write the “against” section in two minutes and the “for” section is a strawman, pick something else. Look for a technology where:

  • There is a real, identifiable benefit that someone would miss if it disappeared.
  • There is a real, identifiable harm that falls on someone.
  • The benefit and the harm often land on different people.
  • The dilemma survives good intentions — it is not simply a case of a company behaving badly, but a case where even a careful, well-meaning designer faces a hard tradeoff.

Examples of the shape of a workable dilemma (do not feel limited to these): proctoring software that detects cheating and also flags disabled students, a predictive model that allocates scarce medical care, content moderation at a scale that requires automation, smoking or driving-behavior logging that lowers insurance premiums for some and raises them for others.

If you are unsure whether your choice presents a real dilemma, ask me or a TA before the first draft. Discovering at the final-draft stage that your technology has no genuine second side is an expensive problem to fix.

Step 3: Write the Analysis

You will draw upon the framework you built is step 1 to conduct an in-depth analysis of your chosen technology. Your analysis should address (at least) the following questions:

  • What values do this technology reflect, embrace, reject, or encourage?
  • Who is affected by its design? (stakeholders)
  • How was its design affected by society? (the focus of the “how” here depends on your framework)
  • Who reaps the benefits, and who suffers the costs of its creation and use? (“benefits” and “costs” definitions depends on your framework)

And any other questions you included in your framework.

Suggested structure

You are not required to use these headings, and you may reorganize if your argument flows better another way. But every element below must appear somewhere in the paper. The word counts are suggestions to help you budget 1,000–1,500 words, which is tighter than it looks.

Section What it does Approx. words
Introduction Introduce the technology and the article; state the moral dilemma in one or two sentences; preview your recommendation 100–150
Your framework The framework you build on, what your version centers, why (positionality), and what it does not see 200–300
The technology and its values What the technology does, what values it embeds, who its design affects, how society shaped its design, who benefits and who bears the costs 250–350
Arguments for use 2–3 independent, persuasive arguments 150–250
Arguments against use 2–3 independent, persuasive arguments 150–250
Recommendation Your position, with mitigations (if yes) or alternatives (if no) 150–250
Who decides Which actors should have a say in distribution, use, and regulation, and why they have standing 100–150

What “independent” arguments means

Two arguments are independent if knocking one down leaves the other standing. “This tool saves teachers time” and “this tool lets teachers spend more hours with students” are the same argument wearing two hats. “This tool saves teachers time” and “this tool gives students feedback at 11pm when no teacher is available” are independent — they would appeal to different people and rest on different evidence.

Write the arguments you disagree with at their strongest. Steelman, don’t strawman. A reader should not be able to tell from your “against” section which way you are going to land.

What “who decides” means

Don’t rush this part, it carries real weight in the rubric. It is not enough to say “the government should regulate it” or “stakeholders should be consulted.” Be specific about which actors, on what question, and why that actor rather than another. Candidates include: the engineers who build it, the company that owns it, the people it is used on, the people it is used by, professional bodies (recall the ACM Code of Ethics, regulators at the city, state, or federal level, courts, unions, affected communities who were never consulted. Different actors have specific standing over different decisions. For example, who deploys the technology might be a different question from who governs the data it collects.

Requirements

  • Length: 1,000–1,500 words, excluding references.
  • Citations: Cite everything you did not come up with yourself, including paraphrases. Use one citation style consistently — APA, Chicago, or ACM are all fine. If you have no preference, use APA. Include a reference list at the end.
  • Voice: First person is welcome and expected when you are describing your framework and your position. The analysis itself should be argumentative rather than merely reflective.
  • Specificity: Name the technology, the actors, and the harms. “Users may be negatively impacted” is weak; “applicants whose names the resume screener associates with a lower-status school are ranked below equally qualified applicants” is strong.

What This Assignment Is Not

  • It is not a summary of your patent. Assume your reader has read the patent. Spend your words on analysis, not recap.
  • It is not a literature review of ethics frameworks. Describe the framework you use.
  • It is not a both-sides essay that declines to conclude. You must make a recommendation and defend it.
  • It is not graded on which position you take. A well-argued “this should be deployed, with these four safeguards” and a well-argued “this should not exist” can both earn full marks.

Grading Rubric

We will be grading your paper on a 20-point scale:

  • Framework development (5 points)
    • identifies the existing framework(s) you build on, accurately
    • articulates what your version of the framework centers and asks first
    • connects the framework to your own identity and experience, specifically
    • names at least one limitation or blind spot of the framework
  • Depth of analysis (5 points)
    • identifies the moral dilemma clearly and locates the actual tension
    • addresses the values the technology reflects, embraces, rejects, or encourages
    • identifies who is affected by its design, including people who are not users
    • explains how society shaped the design, not only how the design shapes society
    • distinguishes who reaps the benefits from who bears the costs
    • visibly applies the framework rather than setting it aside after the intro
  • Quality of argumentation (5 points)
    • 2–3 genuinely independent arguments for use
    • 2–3 genuinely independent arguments against use
    • opposing arguments presented at their strongest
    • claims supported by evidence and citation rather than assertion
  • Recommendation and governance (3 points)
    • takes a clear position that follows from the arguments presented
    • gives concrete mitigations (if recommending use) or concrete alternative means of achieving the benefits (if recommending against)
    • identifies specific actors and explains why each has standing over which decisions
  • Writing and mechanics (2 points)
    • clear organization and structure; readable, not convoluted
    • meets length, source, and citation requirements
    • proofread

Drafts and Revision

This paper has a first draft (due Oct 7, end of the day) and a final draft (due Oct 21, end of the day). You get about a week of feedback turnaround between them.

The first draft is graded, and it should be a complete attempt — all sections present, an actual recommendation, real citations. A first draft that is an outline, or that stops after the “arguments for” section, cannot get you useful feedback on the parts that matter most. If a section is still rough, mark it with a comment in the doc telling me what you are stuck on. That is far more useful to me than a gap.

For the final draft, revise in the same google doc. I want to see what changed.

Recall the course revision policy from the syllabus:

  • Students who earn less than a B on any writing assignment are required to meet with a TA before submitting the final draft of the following assignment.
  • Students who earn a B-, B, or B+ are required to send a rough draft to a TA before submitting the final draft of the following assignment.
  • Students may resubmit major writing assignments with no penalty until the last day of class by meeting with a TA and revising their original submission.

The TAs and the Center for Writing exist for exactly this. Use them.

Getting Started

  1. Mine your journal. You have been writing after every discussion. Look for a technology you already had a reaction to, and for the framework you mentioned most matched the values that are important to you
  2. Draft the framework section first. It is the hardest section and it constrains everything after it.
  3. Pick the technology early. Before you write your analysis, write two sentences: the strongest case for the technology and the strongest case against. If either sentence is hard to write, find a different technology now rather than later.
  4. List stakeholders before you argue. Write down everyone the technology touches — including people who never use it — and note for each whether they gain or lose. Your “who benefits, who pays” analysis falls out of this list.
  5. Write both argument sections before you decide. If you write the recommendation first, the arguments will bend toward it.
  6. Revise for specificity. Replace every vague generalization with a named actor, a named harm, or a cited fact.
  7. Check your citations and your word count, then proofread.

Academic Integrity & Use of AI

The framework and the argument must be yours. Generative AI tools may be used for brainstorming (bring your own ideas into that process) and for proofreading (grammar, clarity of your own prose), but not to generate the substance of your framework, your arguments, or your recommendation. In particular, do not use an LLM to summarize your article — reading it closely yourself is a substantial part of the work this assignment is assessing.

Be careful with a specific risk here: an LLM asked about a technology’s ethics will produce fluent, generic, both-sides text and plausible-looking citations that may not exist. That output is exactly what this rubric scores as weak, and fabricated sources are a scholastic dishonesty issue. Verify every source you cite by reading it.

If you opt to use an LLM tool, disclose any use in a note at the end of your paper, as described in the syllabus. For example:

“For this assignment, I used [list of AI tools used in assignment] for [specific purpose, e.g., generating an outline, summarizing sources, grammar revision] but not for [list of student contribution, e.g., direct content creation.]”