Jonas Wechsler on Contemporary Issues in Computer Science

In 2016 I worked for a company called Hanson Robotics, which develops human-like robots that can make facial expressions and converse. Their most well known robot is called Sophia, and has had interviews with the United Nations, BBC, Business Insider, the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and a host of others (Yakowicz). The robot is also currently a citizen of Saudi Arabia. The robot is currently used for entertainment and has been used in theater, and recently there's been a recent push for home-friendly consumer models (Hanson). Last year, Facebook's director of AI called Sophia a "Wizard of Oz AI" and "complete bullshit" (Ghosh). This is probably a fair assessment. Sophia's inner conversational workings are essentially a chatbot with a lot of pre-written dialogue. This works simply because it's not very difficult to predict the kinds of questions people will ask. As one of my coworkers put it, "there's basically 3 categories of question

This semester, I'm enrolled in Beginner Social Dance at UT. While some dance classes focus on choreographed sets, impressive solo techniques, or competition, social dancing is a conduit for socializing. In beginner dancing, you establish a dedicated lead and a follow, where the lead suggests, through motion, moves for the follow to do, and the follow can in turn suggest style and motion to the lead, though it may be more subtle. Dances are typically established with a "basic", which is a short repetitive motion done to the beat of the music, and other moves which are executed from the basic on the same count. In some more involved dances, like the rotary waltz, it's common to do only the basic, so you can talk while you dance. While you can take liberties in the dances, there are general guidelines to being a fun person to dance with. To be a cooperative dancer, you should be receptive to your partner's movements and style, while also being active and energetic.

I use a variety of social media platforms, but I think the growth of Discord has influenced my social media habits the most. Discord is a free VoIP group chat platform often compared to Skype. Initially, it was developed as a chat platform for gaming communities, much like Ventrilo, Teamspeak, or Mumble, though Discord does not require or support user-hosted servers. The majority of Discord servers are used for gaming, but there's a small percentage of servers built around the discussion of "everything from crypto-currency to stock trading, music appreciation to language lessons and fantasy football" (Crecente). Discord has become a social platform for myself and my friends- many of my friends from UT and earlier have congregated on Discord. For myself, Discord is a platform for discussion of music, video games, politics, internships and careers, and social functions. We moved from Skype several years ago because we found that Discord offers a much more reliable platfo

Last January, Netflix released the series Tidying Up With Marie Kondo , a reality show in which the host, Ms. Kondo, visits American households and advises the residents on de-cluttering. The show loosely follows the format of Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. The show is generally well received and her book is a best-seller in Europe and Japan. Kondo's book is not about minimalism, and she states in her book that minimalism is not her goal, but the themes are similar. Though some readers have interpreted her writing as in favor of minimal ownership, I argue that her goal is not to help the reader own as little as possible, but to introduce the reader to some specific elements of eastern philosophy (Martin). In particular, the success of Kondo's media has, under the lens of consumerism, introduced some select Shinto and Buddhist practices to the western mainstream, such as animism, meditation, and mindfulness. Animism is the belief that objects have

Under the Obama administration, the use of drone strikes increased in Pakistan increased substantially (Drone). In his first year in office, the number of attacks increased from 36 to 54, and again to 122 the year after that (Drone). Initially, these attacks did not garner much scrutiny from the general public, probably because of the death of Osama bin Laden and the devastation of the al-Qaeda network. White house officials at the time stated that, while the government was rapidly expanding the use of drones, they were not trying to create a network of war machines reaching to every corner of the globe, as some believed (Miller). Since 2011, the number of drone strikes has steadily decreased and almost vanished (Drone). However, 500-1000 civilians, about 200 children, and 3 Americans were killed in the attacks (Serle). Of the 2,379 dead, 84 were confirmed members of Al-Qaeda, and of the 704 identified, only 295 were confirmed to be members of a terrorist group (Serle). A study at Sta

Cyber attacks pose an increasingly large threat to US security. Donald Trump has declared a national emergency regarding threats along the border with Mexico, though a recent Worldwide Threat Assessment from Daniel Coats, the US Director of National Intelligence barely mentions border security. Instead, it emphasizes cyber threats from Russia, China, and to a degree North Korea and Iran. The public should understand the nature of these threats, and what they can do to protect themselves. One facet of cyber attacks is large, temporarily disruptive attacks on critical infrastructure. For example, China has the ability to disrupt a natural gas pipeline for days or weeks (Coats, 5). Russia has the ability to disrupt electrical grids for a few hours, which they have previously done to the Ukraine in 2015 and 2016 (Coats, 6). Moscow is currently mapping out US infrastructure for this purpose. Iran has been preparing to disrupt large corporate networks, which they have previously done to