We will be assigning websites during the class meetings on June 6 and June 8; if you are unable to attend, please come by my office hours or send me email at langley@cs.fsu.edu. (The list of websites is here; please give me the number if you send me email.)
Please read the privacy policy and terms of use for the website that you have been assigned. (If you are using any browser extensions, you may have to suppress some of those to get to some of these pages.)
You have two options for your submission: one is a traditional essay as outlined below, or you may do a 15 minute in-person session to discuss this with me (also outlined below.)
Please write a paper of at least 1500 words in its body (very roughly about four pages of double-spaced material) covering:
Electronic Frontier Alliance Principles
Free Expression:
People should be able to speak their minds to whoever will listen.
Security:
Technology should be trustworthy and answer to its users.
Privacy:
Technology should allow private and anonymous speech, and allow users to set their own parameters about what to share with whom.
Creativity:
Technology should promote progress by allowing people to build on the ideas, creations, and inventions of others.
Access to Knowledge:
Curiosity should be rewarded, not stifled.
(https://www.eff.org/electronic-frontier-alliance)
For part 4, the relevant ethical codes are:
Please make sure that you put your name and email address in your paper. Your paper must be submitted on Canvas. You must submit a PDF file. Other file types, such as DOCX and RTF, will not be accepted. Generally, most WYSIWYG programs like Microsoft's Word require you to explicitly "export" a document to PDF format. (I encourage you to take this opportunity to learn LaTeX; for a simple paper like this, it's no great effort at all to use. A good, simple tutorial is available at https://www.latex-tutorial.com/tutorials/; a more advanced one is available at https://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/spr10/cos433/Latex/latex-guide.pdf. I don't recommend using websites or software that offer to make using LaTeX painless; LaTeX is not all that difficult to use in the way that it was designed, and it's far more flexible to do so.)
In your "Works Cited"/"Bibliography" section, please do include the three URLs for your website, the EFF's EFA page, and the four ethical codes listed above. (As mentioned above, the bibliography is separate from the 1500 word count for the body of the paper.)
Here's the schedule for the essay option:
You may choose your favorite style for citations and references; I happen to prefer the default LaTeX/bibtex settings, but MLA, APA, or any other reasonably standard format is fine.
You may use AI to generate text for this essay. The total generated amount of text cannot be more than 15% of the essay's body (as measured by words, not physical size.) If you decide to do so, you must (1) put in a separate box any AI-generated content and (2) follow the "blue box" conventions used by the authors of this paper (Can GPT-3 write an academic paper on itself, with minimal human input?) in order to delineate your prompt from the generated text (if you don't specify any special parameters, then just note that you didn't change any default parameters.) Failure to clearly delineate your prompt and the generated text will result in the -50 point penalty given in the rubric for each instance of such failure.
For example, the style of your prompt and the AI-generated content should look something like this:
Prompt: Summarize the rules and other relevant portions of the current applicable copyright regimen of the current United States Copyright Office with respect to AI-produced creative works.
Current copyright practice in the United States with regard to AI-produced creative works is that such works are automatically in the public domain.
The rubric for the essay:
Fortunately, there is a bottom floor of 0 points, so while the rubric would suggest a possible low score of -300 points (or more, if you have AI-generated text incorrectly formatted) for not turning in your paper, the floor of 0 means that you would receive a zero rather than -300.
If you wish to turn to submit a draft for review, it is due by 11:59pm on Friday, June 16. Submitting a draft has no effect on your class grade, and will neither help nor harm your class grade. The advantage of submitting a draft is that you might receive feedback from me that could be useful.
I would suggest that you make some notes along the lines of what you might include in your traditionally formatted essay, but I don't require you to do so — it's entirely your choice. I don't plan to have any set of standard questions, but undoubtedly I will ask you what normative basis (or bases) you might have used, and, as well, some questions about adherence to the EFF's precepts.
Please send me email (or talk to me after class) no later than June 20 about scheduling your 15 minute discussion. We can do this during my usual office hours 1:00pm - 2:30pm and 3:30 - 5:30pm on Wednesdays, or if these times are not convenient (or available, since I will parcel these out first-come-first-serve), we can schedule time either on Mondays or Fridays. All interview sessions must be completed by June 26.