For my final term at SFU for the Big Data specialization masters program I was at a decision junction between several courses I can take. I was certain of taking an NLP (natural language processing) course and only need to take one more elective course besides that. The choice was between CMPT 727 - Statistical Machine Learning and CMNS 815 - Social Construction of Communication Technologies. CMPT 727 would clearly complement the whole degree itself and would even go hand in hand with NLP, while CMNS 815 may be argued as more loosely tied to the degree and my overall career path. But I have made a similar decision before in my undergraduate years, between taking statistics or philosophy as my minor. I chose the uncommon philosophy as my choice, and in the same fate spirit as I did before I choise CMNS 815 as my last elective course to take.

Why?

My decision to take philosophy as my undergraduate minor were due to both my interest and benefits. With machine learning and data science on the rise, many would probably I missed out on the opportunity as statistical capabilities would help me transition with more ease to such roles. Personally I disagree, firstly because statistics is not something I’m particularly fond of learning (it is one of the more difficult areas of mathematics for me to get a handle on), and secondly I felt that zoning in on a technical field would make me too technically inclined. I prefer to be more balanced and rounded in both discipline and worldview. These same reasons apply when I chose CMNS 815 over CMPT 727. I knew that I am neither greatly interested in statistics or machine learning (I prefer building and designing software) and that CMNS 815 would help me see technology in a broder social context.

What I learned

CMNS 815 in a nutshell was examining how technologies not just impact, but play a role in the shaping of society, cultures and worldviews. The technologies discussed were not constraint to the technologies we are so wary of these days such as social media, surveillance cameras, computers but also to clocks, institutions, language and many more things that in this day and age we would not immediately associate with the word “technology”. Perhaps it is better to replace “technology” with the term “tools of life” to capture the broad sense of technology covered. But the course isn’t about isolating particular social phenomena or impact to a particular technology, but it attempted to use particular case studies of technology to bring about understanding and appreciation of how technology MAY impact society. Example of topics include:

  • distributed agency, realizing objects (technologies) can express a form of choice and greatly affect our own sense of agency
  • the subtle yet powerful classifications made by technologies and their designers
  • the encoding of humanity in something that is not human, such as data
  • importance and power of language and metaphors in how we think of the world including technologies
  • ethics and how technologists grapple with ethical needs and perceived moral stances
  • shaping behaviour through technology

and many more…

Why I value it so much

Aside from my own interests the professor Sun Ha Hong who teched the course was clearly keen, knowledgeable and empathetic. Combined with my own personal interests, it made the class much more enjoyable. The small class size (7 people in total) was also beneficial as thre were a lot of opportunities, designed or ad-hoc, to engage with students and exchange pointers. Above all however is the diversity of topics, while also maintaining an approachable depth so as to not just be a skim of topics. As a professional working in software, there are seldom any encouragement or endorsed professional opportunity to expand insights beyond the usual technical realm. Having guidance in the vast discourse of social topics helps me expand my understanding and appreciation in a manageable way.

As a software engineer I wanted to be better at wrestling and engaging with the social consequences of my own work and the profession itself. I came to CMNS 815 with that hope, and I felt it did better prepare me for future challenges. Certainly, the spotlights given by media these days pressured me to thinking that I should be able to balance the ethical and social good with monetary results. But I am also of the conviction that positively navigating the social dilemmas of our creation should be a nurtured and expected ability of software engineers. This course helped me forward to realize that conviction in my own professional life. Sure, the chances of being asked about the social issues of technology in an interview will likely not crop up. Open discussion of them might not even happen reasonably often, and my colleagues may show little interest. However, I see this knowledge and experience as my little edge over others, and I can proudly say that I am not afraid to reflect on the muddy social issues of the software I had built.

As a culmination of what I had learnt I wrote a paper on cryptocurrency and trust (maybe I will cover it in some future time).

My recommendation to you

If you are an SFU student and you can afford to take this course, take this course. If you happen to find a similar course somewhere else take it. I’m obviously biased, and well aware that such my fellow software engineers (or perhaps technologists in general) are not really inclined to take such courses. I understand, between learning something that can have immediate clear gains to your professional and personal life (learning some new language) vs a course like CMNS 815, many would choose the former. Yet I can’t help to recommend this course least because of the knowledge and experience I had gained, and more so due to how I throughly enjoyed it.