5.1: Beneficial and Harmful Effects
Popcorn Hack #1
What do You Think is a Beneficial Effect?
Click Here for Answer!
CollegeBoard defines Beneficial effects as the result of advancements in communication, commerce, and programming.
What do You Think is a Harmful Effect?
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CollegeBoard defines Harmful effects as the potential misuse or dilemma that may come with developing technology.
Today, our group will go over examples of Beneficial, Harmful other debatable aspects of technology.
Beneficial
Beneficial Effects of Technology
Automated telephone trees
- This is an example from CollegeBoard: An automated telephone tree is what companies use to redirect you based on your needs. (For ex: “Press 1 if you need assistance, Press 2 if it’s an emergency, etc)
- This innovation allowed for empolyers to save money and for a reduction in hold time for consumers, leading to an overall beneficial effect.
Science and Technology
- Computing has allowed for new technologies like MRI scanning and DNA sequencing.
- This allows for scientists to develop new medicines and ways to diagnose diseases efficiantly. Technological advancments were also the only reason people were able to develop vaccines for diseases like COVID, allowing for peace within a society.
Access to Education
- Technology has allowed for things like encyclopedias to be transferred online and education artices to be published in online databases. Libraries also have a large collection of e-books, allowing for a wide variety of information readily avaialable to everyone.
- Google and other browesers have made it possible to have millions of sources at our fingertips.
Popcorn Hack #2
What do you think is the most beneficial out of these (or pick your own)? Why? Also, brainstrom additional beneficial effects of technology.
Harmful
Unsafe Use/ Cyberbullying
- Younger populations like young children using the internet are also more susceptible to online scams or false advertismemt.
- Another big risk in young children is the chance that they might fall prey to inapporpriate content or grooming by adults while using technology. There have been many cases across the country where children have been exploited by pedophiles and other harmful people due to unmonitered technology use.
- Cyberbullying can be an effect of purposeful harm or unpurposeful. For example, beauty standards and judgment that are unconsciously passed online can lead to users feeling depressed. This goes hand in hand with social media.
Social Media
- This is one of the most talked about harmful effects of technology, specifically in teenagers. Social media like Instagram and TikTok have been proven to decrease mental health and cause insecurities in impressionable teenagers. It can also lead to depression or anxiety.
- In 2022 mother Tammy Rodriguez sued media giants like Meta and Snapchat for suposedly driving her 11 year old daughter to suicide. Rodriguez reported that her daugher’s hyperfixation on social media would lead her to be violent and sometimes depressed because of poor self-esteem.
- Trends and challenges on social media have also made children take many bad decisions.
- Also in 2022, 4 parents sued TikTok after their kids had died while attempting the “blackout challenge” together. This challenge was to hold your breath for as long as you can, and the young children were not smart enough to know when to stop.
- Also in 2022, 4 parents sued TikTok after their kids had died while attempting the “blackout challenge” together. This challenge was to hold your breath for as long as you can, and the young children were not smart enough to know when to stop.
Technological Dilemas: Automated cars/ Trolley Problem
- Beneficial: Technology makes the decision for us; humans do not need to make the risky choice of killing one person over 5 or vice versa. The video also talks about how humans tend to freeze up in situations like these, which leads to more unwanted harm. An automated car, on the other hand, does not have feelings, and can quickly execute the code that it was given with no hesitation.
- Harmful: How can we be sure that the computer will make the right decision? How can we just blindy trust technology? For example, if the computer was coded to move into the path with less people, does that immediately justify their deaths?
This leads us to our Neutral section, where we dicuss dilemas that can have both beneficial AND harmful effects.
Neutral (Potential to have both Beneficial and Harmful Effects)
Artificial Intelligence
- With the developent of AI, there has been a large surge in the use of OpenAI and ChatGPT. The ethics of using AI has consistantly been argued over the last few years.
- Benefits: AI is easy to use and beneficial to students that may need a little help finishing or starting assigments. AI also allows for increased efficiancy and productivity, as answers are given to users in mere seconds. It is also able to analyze large sets of data in seconds, which is much more efficiant for businesses looking to save money. Lastly, AI can also be used in healthcare by monitoring patients and identifiying symptons that may have been missed by humans.
- Harm: AI is known to contribute to global warming; GPT-3 developed by OpenAI used over 700,000 liters of water and generated over 552 tons of carbon dioxide. It is estimated that data centers and artifical intelligence will could consume over 4% of annual global energy usage. Many schools also argue that the use of AI is taking away from students’ learning experience and taking away critical thinking skills. AI can also be used to create harmful media like deepfake or manipulative videos that spread misinformation.
UAVs/ Drones
- This is another example used by CollegeBoard. UAVs/ Drones are used as a tool for search and rescue, aerial photography, and military purposes. However, many argue that it could violate privacy.
- Benefits: Using drones for search and rescue is much more efficiant that using a helicopter and looking with just your eye. The camera of a drone is much more clear and useful. Drones can also be used for things like wildfire monitoring, ensuring the safety of humans. Drones have also been used for things like Agriculture, allowing for a easier and more cost efficiant way to spread pesticide.
- Harms: Many have expressed privacy concerns, claiming that a camera constantly flying above them is a violation of their security. Unauthorized drones or bad controlling can also lead them to crash into power lines or buildings, causing costly repairs. Using drones for military and war is also controversial, especially after many terrorist attacks. For example, drones attacked Syria on October 2023, leaving 89 people dead and over 200 injured.
Gene Editing
- Gene Editing is the scientific process by which reasearchers/scientists can modify an organism’s DNA. This was made possible after the development of technological tools that act like “molecular scissors.”
- Benefits: Research in this field can help scientists understand how to treat things like genetic diseases. By cutting and replacing certain parts of DNA, a patient can potentially be cured. Gene editing can also be used in agriculture to make crops resistant to pests and allow for more yield to be produced (GMO).
- Harms: Gene editing has sparked various debates. In the United States, it is actually illegal to do Germline Editing, which is when reproductive cells are modified. This is because there it is extremley likely that the gene editing fails and causes fatal damages in the organism. Many of these damages can also affect future generations of the organism, since it’s entire DNA was changed. There is also controversy surrounding the fact that when unregulated, gene editing can be used in cruel and unethical ways.
Popcorn Hack #3
Pick a dilema from above. Do you think it’s more beneficial or harmful?
Homework Hacks
- Based on the brainstorming you did during the lesson, pick a beneficial or harmful effect and in 5 sentences fully explain why you think this topic is beneficial of harmful?
- Please do the MCQ linked below