|Week 15: 12.1

Week 15: 12.1
Class: Multimedia presentations; Writers workshop
Due: RESEARCH PAPER (UP TO PG. 3); REFLECTION 6

Upcoming:

Week 16: 12.8
Class: Multimedia presentations; Writers workshop; Course overview
Due: RESEARCH PAPER (UP TO PG. 6)

Week 17: Wed. 12.13*
Finals Week: 12.13 (8 AM – 9:30 AM; Location TBD)
Class: RESEARCH PAPER (FINAL DRAFT)

*Student ePortfolios due 12.15—Mandatory; See Canvas for details

|Future News: 11.24

• Hillary Clinton warns that AI is "not our friend" (Business Inside)
• Chic curtains transform your windows into instant nighttime cityscapes (Inhabitat)
• Mars candy company pledges to go carbon neutral by 2040 (PRI)
• Can Chinese surveillance apparatus identify you simply by your walk? (Quartz)
• BMW proposes a series of urban elevated bicycle paths (Wired)
• Maui is home to a low-impact small home which emphasizes outside living (Inhabitat)

|Reflection 6: Who Wants to Live Forever?—The Science of Whole Brain Emulation

What if the end wasn't really the end? What if science and technology could promise us life after death via the digital transference of your mind? That is the premise of Whole Brain Emulation (WBE) or "mind uploading." Specifically, WBE is the hypothetical copying of a person's consciousness, including personality and memories, into an artificial digital device (including an android body) or wireless network. Coupled with Transhumanism, a movement which aims to transform the human body through technological augmentation, WBE is an increasingly relevant (and controversial) field of scientific study. Proponents argue that within our lifetime we will have the capability of electronically transferring our minds beyond a physical body. If this indeed becomes a reality (and there are many who say it is not), how would it affect how we define our own humanity? Is a human still a human when he or she is no longer contained in a flesh and blood vessel? Does WBE redefine human concepts of a soul? Would death have the same meaning for us if we knew we had an electronic out? Finally, if WBE were available today, would you opt to transfer your consciousness into a machine at the time of your "death"?

Include at least two of the following in your discussion:

• "How to Live Forever: Here are the Ways Silicon Valley Plans to Conquer Death" (National Post)
• "God in the Machine: My Strange Journey into Transhumanism" (Guardian)
• "Mind Uploading' and Digital Immortality May be Reality by 2045, Futurists Say" (Huffington Post)
• "Immortal, but Damned to Hell on Earth" (Atlantic)
• "'Your Animal Life is Over. Machine Life Has Begun': The Road to Imortality" (Guardian)
• "Brain Emulations Pose Three Massive Moral Questions and a Scarily Practical One" (Inverse)

Required:

• MLA Style
• Works cited 
• ONE full pages in length

Due: Fri 12.1

|Week 14: 11.24

Week 14: 11.24
NO CLASS—HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Upcoming:

Week 15: 12.1
Class: Multimedia presentations; Writers workshop
Due: RESEARCH PAPER (UP TO PG. 3); REFLECTION 6

Week 16: 12.8
Class: Multimedia presentations; Writers workshop; Course overview
Due: RESEARCH PAPER (UP TO PG. 6)

Week 17: Wed. 12.13
Finals Week: 12.13 (8 AM – 9:30 AM; Location TBD)
Class: RESEARCH PAPER (FINAL DRAFT)

|Future News 11.17

• Boston Dynamics' Atlas tries its hand at parkour (TechCrunch)
• Tesla debuts Tesla Semi (TheVerge)
• ALSO: Tesla surprises with a $250k, record-fast roadster (CNET)
• Tianjin, China opens the "library of the future" (CGTN)
• How the FETCH Model offers insight into the workplaces of the future (Forbes)
• Heads up: Chinese doctor's claim the world's first human head transplant (Telegraph)
• Players push back on EA's Battlefront II microtransactions, forcing a temporarily halt (Kotaku)

|Week 13: 11.17

Week 13: 11.17
Class: TOULMIN METHOD; Multimedia presentations; Writers workshop; Library research session
Due: RESEARCH PAPER THESIS AND OUTLINE (BRING 2 COPIES); REFLECTION 5

Upcoming:

Week 14: 11.24
NO CLASS—HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Week 15: 12.1
Class: Multimedia presentations; Writers workshop
Due: RESEARCH PAPER (UP TO PG. 3); REFLECTION 6

Week 16: 12.8
Class: Multimedia presentations; Writers workshop; Course overview
Due: RESEARCH PAPER (UP TO PG. 6)

Week 17: Wed. 12.13
Finals Week: 12.13 (8 AM – 9:30 AM; Location TBD)
Class: RESEARCH PAPER (FINAL DRAFT)

|Future News 10.10

• Fighter jets with lasers are coming by 2021 (IEEE Spectrum)
• Are football's days numbered? Bob Costa says, "The reality is that this game destroys people’s brains" (USA Today)
• Uber's flying taxis coming to LAX by 2020 (TheVerge)
• Syria joins the Paris Climate Accord, leaving the US the only nation to oppose (BBC News)
• After purchasing LinkedIn, Microsoft bringing "Resume Assistant" to Word (Ars Technica)
• 2017 television portrays a record number of LGBTQ characters (TheVerge)

|Week 12: 11.10

Week 12: 11.10
NO CLASS—VETERANS DAY

Upcoming:

Week 13: 11.17
Class: TOULMIN METHOD; Multimedia presentations; Writers workshop; Library research session
Due: RESEARCH PAPER THESIS AND OUTLINE (BRING 2 COPIES); REFLECTION 5

Week 14: 11.24
NO CLASS—HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Week 15: 12.1
Class: Multimedia presentations; Writers workshop
Due: RESEARCH PAPER (UP TO PG. 3); REFLECTION 6

Week 16: 12.8
Class: Multimedia presentations; Writers workshop; Course overview
Due: RESEARCH PAPER (UP TO PG. 6)

Week 17: Wed. 12.13
Finals Week: 12.13 (8 AM – 9:30 AM; Location TBD)
Class: RESEARCH PAPER (FINAL DRAFT)

|Future News 11.3

• Danish apartment complex consists of 48 shipping containers (Inhabitat)
• Luminescent pajamas might help babies with jaundice (NewAtlas)
• Neuroscientist: We should be open to brain implants to keep up with AI (ScientificAmerican)
• Here are robots incredible animal-inspired robots (InterestingEngineering)
• No, Americans do not want to give Amazon access to their homes (GeekWire)
• Sex robot developer hopes to create robot babies (Inquisitor)

 

|Reflection 5: Tuned Out—The Future of Television

For most of the history of TV, if you wanted to catch an episode of your favorite show, you had no choice but to be home on the night and time it aired. Miss watching or recording the show and you had to wait until it reran or found its way to VHS (or eventually, DVD). Back then, the broadcast networks (of which there were only three: NBC, CBS, and ABC) had a far greater say in when and how you, the viewer, watched your favorite shows. But the Internet revolution and technological advancements have changed all that. The power to watch what you want—however and whenever—is now in your hands. In fact, Millennials have radically shifted the television paradigm. Not only does your peer group refuse to watch television in the ways in which previous generations did, you also watch less of it. When you do watch TV, you're as likely to watch it on a device other than a television. What does all of this mean for the future of TV? Are exciting developments in television technology enough to lure you back into traditional viewing patterns? What will TV watching look like in 10-20 years?

Include at least two of the following in your discussion:

• "The Messy, Confusing Future of TV? It's Here" (New York Times) 
• "Nearly Half of Millennials and Gen Xers Don't Watch any Traditional TV: Study" (AdAge)
• "The Future of Television is à la Carte" (Forbes)
• "The Future of Television: Cutting the Cord" (The Economist)
• "Millennials Mostly Watch TV After It’s Aired" (Recode)
• "Judging by CES, Here’s What the Future of TVs is Gonna Look Like" (New York Magazine)

Required:

• MLA Style
• Works cited 
• Two full pages in length

Due: Fri 11.17