Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility

Last updated
Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
AbbreviationCPSR
Formation1983
Dissolved2013
Type NGO
PurposePromote responsible use of computer technology
Headquarters Seattle, Washington
Website cpsr.org

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) was a global organization promoting the responsible use of computer technology. CPSR was incorporated in 1983 following discussions and organizing that began in 1981. [1] It educated policymakers and the public on a wide range of issues. CPSR incubated numerous projects such as Privaterra, the Public Sphere Project, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, the 21st Century Project, the Civil Society Project, and the Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference. Founded by U.S. computer scientists at Stanford University and Xerox PARC, CPSR had members in over 30 countries on six continents. CPSR was a non-profit 501.c.3 organization registered in California.

When CPSR was established, it was concerned solely about the use of computers in warfare. It was focused on the Strategic Computing Initiative, a US Defense project to use artificial intelligence in military systems, but added opposition to the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) shortly after the program was announced. The Boston chapter helped organize a debate related to the software reliability of SDI systems which drew national attention ("Software Seen as Obstacle in Developing 'Star Wars', Philip M. Boffey, (The New York Times, September 16, 1986) to these issues. Later, workplace issues, privacy, and community networks were added to CPSR's agenda.

CPSR began as a chapter-based organization and had chapters in Palo Alto, Boston, Seattle, Austin, Washington DC, Portland (Oregon) and other US locations as well as a variety of international chapters including Peru and Spain. The chapters often developed innovative projects including a slide show about the dangers of launch on warning (Boston chapter) and the Seattle Community Network (Seattle chapter).

CPSR sponsored two conferences: the Participatory Design Conferences which was held biennially [2] and the Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing (DIAC) symposium series which was launched in 1987 in Seattle. The DIAC symposia have been convened roughly every other year since that time. Four books (Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing; Reinventing Technology, Rediscovering Community; Community Practice in the Network Society; Shaping the Network Society; "Liberating Voices: A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution") and two special sections in the Communications of the ACM ("Social Responsibility" and "Social Computing") resulted from the DIAC symposia.

CPSR awarded the Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility. Some notable recipients include David Parnas, Joseph Weizenbaum, Severo Ornstein, Kristen Nygaard, Barbara Simons, Antonia Stone, Peter G. Neumann, Marc Rotenberg, Mitch Kapor, and Douglas Engelbart. The final award in 2013 went posthumously to the organisation's first executive director, Gary Chapman. [3] Since CPSR's dissolution, the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology (SSIT)is now making the Norbert Weiner awards |url=https://technologyandsociety.org/member-resources/awards-programs/norbert-wiener-award/ |access-date=20 February 2023

There's a debate about holding computer professionals accountable for unforeseen negative consequences of their work. However, some believe that most computer-related disasters can be prevented through a deeper understanding of professional responsibility. [4] The organization was dissolved in May 2013. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Weizenbaum</span> German American computer scientist (1923–2008)

Joseph Weizenbaum was a German American computer scientist and a professor at MIT. The Weizenbaum Award and the Weizenbaum Institute are named after him.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phil Zimmermann</span> Creator of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)

Philip R. Zimmermann is an American computer scientist and cryptographer. He is the creator of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), the most widely used email encryption software in the world. He is also known for his work in VoIP encryption protocols, notably ZRTP and Zfone. Zimmermann is co-founder and Chief Scientist of the global encrypted communications firm Silent Circle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norbert Wiener</span> American mathematician and philosopher (1894–1964)

Norbert Wiener was an American computer scientist, mathematician and philosopher. He became a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and mathematical noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kristen Nygaard</span> Norwegian computer scientist and mathematician

Kristen Nygaard was a Norwegian computer scientist, programming language pioneer, and politician. Internationally, Nygaard is acknowledged as the co-inventor of object-oriented programming and the programming language Simula with Ole-Johan Dahl in the 1960s. Nygaard and Dahl received the 2001 A. M. Turing Award for their contribution to computer science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Winograd</span> American professor

Terry Allen Winograd is an American professor of computer science at Stanford University, and co-director of the Stanford Human–Computer Interaction Group. He is known within the philosophy of mind and artificial intelligence fields for his work on natural language using the SHRDLU program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ARPANET</span> Early packet switching network (1969–1990)

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. The ARPANET was established by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the United States Department of Defense.

The Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility was established in 1987 in honor of Norbert Wiener to recognize contributions by computer professionals to socially responsible use of computers. It was awarded annually by CPSR, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, until that organization disbanded in 2013. The award is now managed by the IEEE Society for the Social Implications of Technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Simons</span> American computer scientist

Barbara Bluestein Simons is an American computer scientist and the former president of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). She is a Ph.D. graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and spent her early career working as an IBM researcher. She is the founder and former co-chair of USACM, the ACM U.S. Public Policy Council. Her main areas of research are compiler optimization, scheduling theory and algorithm analysis and design.

Severo M. Ornstein is an American retired computer scientist and the son of composer Leo Ornstein. In 1955, he joined MIT's Lincoln Laboratory as a programmer and designer for the SAGE air-defense system. He later joined the TX-2 group and became a member of the team that designed the LINC. He moved with the team to Washington University in St. Louis where he was one of the principal designers of macromodules.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wesley A. Clark</span> American physicist and computer engineer

Wesley Allison Clark was an American physicist who is credited for designing the first modern personal computer. He was also a computer designer and the main participant, along with Charles Molnar, in the creation of the LINC computer, which was the first minicomputer and shares with a number of other computers the claim to be the inspiration for the personal computer.

Computer ethics is a part of practical philosophy concerned with how computing professionals should make decisions regarding professional and social conduct.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interface Message Processor</span> Computer network device

The Interface Message Processor (IMP) was the packet switching node used to interconnect participant networks to the ARPANET from the late 1960s to 1989. It was the first generation of gateways, which are known today as routers. An IMP was a ruggedized Honeywell DDP-516 minicomputer with special-purpose interfaces and software. In later years the IMPs were made from the non-ruggedized Honeywell 316 which could handle two-thirds of the communication traffic at approximately one-half the cost. An IMP requires the connection to a host computer via a special bit-serial interface, defined in BBN Report 1822. The IMP software and the ARPA network communications protocol running on the IMPs was discussed in RFC 1, the first of a series of standardization documents published by what later became the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference</span> Annual academic conference

The Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference is an annual academic conference held in the United States or Canada about the intersection of computer technology, freedom, and privacy issues. The conference was founded in 1991, and since at least 1999, it has been organized under the aegis of the Association for Computing Machinery. It was originally sponsored by CPSR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Norman Abramson</span> American engineer and computer scientist (1932–2020)

Norman Manuel Abramson was an American engineer and computer scientist, most known for developing the ALOHAnet system for wireless computer communication.

Antonia "Toni" Stone was an educator and pioneering activist against the growing digital divide who created the United States' first community technology center. After 20 years as a mathematics teacher in New York City private schools, Stone changed her focus to technology education for poor communities and formerly incarcerated adults.

Sara Beth (Greene) Kiesler is the Hillman Professor Emerita of Computer Science and Human Computer Interaction in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. She is also a program director in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences at the US National Science Foundation, where her responsibilities include programs on Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace, The Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier, Smart and Connected Communities, and Securing American Infrastructure. She received an M.A. degree in psychology from Stanford in 1963, and a Ph.D., also in psychology, from Ohio State University in 1965.

Gary Chapman was the first executive director of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Willis Ware</span> American computer scientist, engineer and social critic

Howard George Willis Ware, popularly known as Willis Howard Ware was an American computer pioneer who co-developed the IAS machine that laid down the blueprint of the modern day computer in the late 20th century. He was also a pioneer of privacy rights, social critic of technology policy, and a founder in the field of computer security.

This article gives an overview of professional ethics as applied to computer programming and software development, in particular the ethical guidelines that developers are expected to follow and apply when writing programming code, and when they are part of a programmer-customer or employee-employer relationship. These rules shape and differentiate good practices and attitudes from the wrong ones when creating software or when making decisions on a crucial or delicate issue regarding a programming project. They are also the basis for ethical decision-making skills in the conduct of professional work.

The Association for Women in Computing (AWC) is a professional organization for women in computing. It was founded in 1978 in Washington, D.C., and is a member of the Institute for Certification of Computing Professionals (ICCP).

References

  1. History
  2. Participatory Design Conference, listing 1996–2012, University of Trier
  3. 1 2 Schuler, Douglas (May 2013). "Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Dissolution and Gary Chapman, Winner of CPSR's Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility". Public Sphere Project. Archived from the original on 12 August 2021. Retrieved 31 March 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  4. Stieb, James A. "A critique of positive responsibility in computing." Science and Engineering Ethics 14 (2008): 219-233.