MIT271b:  Technology and Human Values

STUDY QUESTIONS FOR Test 2:
Beauty and Knowledge

The test will contain only 4 of the 7 possible questions listed below.
You will be required to answer only 3 of the 4 that appear on the test. 
Complete answers should be approximately 200-400 words each.

1.	What are the three ways in which beauty may be understood? (6)  Use examples to explain each account (3) and explain your own view (1).
2.	Explain David Gelernter’s idea of machine beauty (3), including comparisons with artistic beauty (2), and an explanation of how beauty is supposed be an indicator of truth and rightness (2).  Can this understanding support his claim that aesthetics should be taught to programmers?(3)
3.	According to David Gelernter, what is the paradox of beauty? (1)  How does it arise? (3) What is the source of the error? (2)  How does Gelernter argue the paradox is illustrated by Microsoft’s triumph over Macintosh using the ideas of Macintosh? (2)  What are two weaknesses in this illustration? (2)
4.	What is the Turing Test? (3)  What is the Chinese Room argument? (6)  Why do you or do you not consider the Chinese Room to refute the Turing Test? (1)
5.	What is the functionalist view in philosophy of mind? (2)  Explain three potential problems with it (6) and explain how Hans Moravec is a functionalist (1).
6.	According to Neil Postman, how is technopoly distinguished from technocracy and tool use? (3)  Explain how languages are as much forms of technology as machines (2), illustrating with at least one of the nonstatistical examples (1).  Also explain statistical reification (1) and use either IQ or polling to show problems with statistical technopoly (3).
7.	According to Margaret Lowe Benston, what are some examples of technology used to express masculinity? (2)  How does she argue that a similar expression of femininity is not available to women? (6)  In what two ways is this said to disempower women? (2)