teb@zti1.UUCP (Eric Brunner) (06/10/85)
<> As a bye-the-bye, the New Yorker magazine ran a two part (lenghty) article on SIOPS several weeks ago. I found it interesting and think that someone else just might as well. For those who can read it, Le Monde Diplomatique last year ran a special article on Air- Land Battle. -- Eric Brunner @ zti1 (thats zombie-tty-init-proc1) till 1 July. note the new, completely reduced instruction set address
jocal@epistemi.UUCP (Jo Calder) (06/14/85)
This is an introduction to the aims and activities of Edinburgh
Computing and Social Responsibility (CSR). We would like to hear from
people who are concerned about the uses and potential abuses of
computing in modern society.
The latest issue of our newsletter will be posted to the net shortly.
A contact address and electronic mail addresses are given at the end
of this article.
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Computing and Social Responsibility is made up of people concerned
about the role of computing in society. We are interested in
encouraging community involvement in the use of computer technology,
in an effort to prevent that technology from being developed and
applied irresponsibly. The original inspiration for the group came
from the U.S. society, Computing Professionals for Social
Responsibility. Their brief is mostly the discussion of weapons
technology; we prefer to see ourselves as concerned with more general
problems engendered by the increasing use of computers in all aspects
of society.
CSR's Activities
================
At the moment, the group has about twenty members, mostly from
computing disciplines at the University of Edinburgh and local
software houses. Our meetings are typically informal, taking the form
of seminars or discussions of texts. Some of the topics we have
discussed are: computer technology in nuclear weapons systems, the
ethics of professional association with the military, the effects of
computer technology on unemployment, and the problems of data
protection and privacy. We have spent a considerable amount of time
working on an article on computer technology in weapons launch on
warning systems, which was published by the Scotsman, a Scottish daily
newspaper, on the 17th of October 1984. As a consequence of this, we
have been approached to offer speakers for seminars and for a radio
interview with the World Service of the BBC.
The launch on warning paper was also widely circulated at European
Conference on Artificial Intelligence, where CSR organised a debate on
military involvement in Artificial Intelligence research. At ECAI, we
heard from other interested individuals from both academic and
industrial concerns, and we hope to promote the development of other
local groups on this basis.
The development of the group so far demonstrates what we believe to be
one of our major duties: namely that of acting as an alternative
source of informed opinion, able to provide a technical back-up for
groups who find themselves confronted with technical arguments that
they cannot themselves evaluate. A current activity is the
investigation of the state of the art in Computer-Aided Instruction;
we have prepared an article demonstrating the areas of applicability
of such techniques and the possibilities of their misuse. We intend
this article to be used by parents and teachers who are anxious to
have a general view of the possibilities and drawbacks of CAI.
To coincide with the visit of George Bush to Europe to promote the
acceptance of research into the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), we
are preparing a letter to send to various media laying out grounds for
concern about the achievability of SDI.
Disseminating Information from CSR
==================================
We have started to produce a newsletter, the second edition of which
will be sent to the net shortly. Our intention is to promote
discussion by means of articles and summaries of information that
appears elsewhere: contributions and replies to articles are warmly
invited. As the interval between issues of the newsletters is likely
to be three months, we hope that this discussion will be continued on
the net. For those without access to the net we will supply a digest
of discussions with subsequent issues of our hard copy newsletter.
In line with our aim of extending awareness of the potential dangers
of the abuse of computing, we want to have contact with all areas
where computers are used, in industry, government, education, research
and so on. If you would like to contact CSR, please write to us at one
of the addresses below. If you live or work in the Edinburgh region,
then we'll let you know when we're next meeting; elsewhere, we'll try
and put you in touch with others who are concerned about the use of
computing in modern society.
Paper Mail: Computing and Social Responsibility,
3 Buccleuch Terrace,
EDINBURGH,
EH8 9NB,
Scotland
Electronic Mail: D.Plummer%edxa@ucl-cs
or ...!seismo!mcvax!ukc!cstvax!epistemi!rda
or frankh%eusip@ucl-cs
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Jonathan Calder, Publicity Officer, Edinburgh CSR
...!seismo!mcvax!ukc!cstvax!epistemi!jocal