A little late to the game - Week 2 exercise

Hey everyone.  My name is Dom, this is the last class of my last semester at the iSchool, and I can't tell you how excited I am to be running the home stretch.  In all honestly, I don't find that I quite fit in at the iSchool, and I'm surprised that I have been able to make it this far through grad school without losing my mind.  I don't view myself as an upstanding academic with burning research interests that are going to allow me to make a significant impact within the information sciences.  The reason I am studying information is because I have worked for the Toronto Public Library for nearly eleven years, and I love the interactions that I have had with patrons.  I want to be a public librarian because I enjoy the feeling of community, and I want to play an active role in programming for those within the community I serve.

For the first Luker exercise, I feel like I have had to limit myself to issues which specifically concern the information sciences.  One of the only things I truly care about that provides me with a level of satisfaction that I have never felt through any other means is the process of songwriting and performing in front of audiences.  When someone is moved by music that I have created, or claims that lyrics I have written and sung evokes some sort of emotion within them, I experience a degree of satisfaction that has never been achieved through any other action.  I also like watching baseball and going to underground punk rock concerts and throwing myself in the mosh pit. However, given the field we are all currently studying, I thought I'd leave my primary interests out of it and explore an area that my friends and I have stayed up until 4am discussing... usually over several drinks.

There are so many different forms of information and communication technologies that continue to emerge and it is extremely difficult just to keep up with the newest gadgets or the latest breakthroughs in intelligent autonomous systems.  For the first Luker exercise, two specific interests came to mind, but of course the actual process of forming a question seemed impossible.  Below you will find the subjects of interest followed by some potential questions that might be worth exploration:

Ethics and Data Collection of Fitness Trackers

• Where does my biometric data go when taken from my Fitbit?
• What would incentivize someone to hack and steal my data?
• Should we be concerned if biometric data is being collected from minors?
• Can health data be used by health insurance companies to raise insurance premiums?
• Can biometric data become legally binding in a court of law?
• Will targeted advertisements occur because of my biometric data and do I even have the right to prevent it?
• Does putting on a Fitbit automatically mean I consent to having my biometric data shared and possibly sold?
• How will data collected about sleeping or activity patterns have an effect on intimate relationships between couples? Could it accurately reveal instances of sexual activity? Could this be a way to discover infidelity? Does this technology or the possibility of this technology make us trust each other less? What does that say about the future of human relationships?

Ethics and Intelligent Autonomous Systems, specifically Driverless Cars

• Who is liable for accidents at the fault of a driverless car?
• If accident rates are proved to be lower than human operated cars, and in the end more people will be safe, does that trump the stance against regulating driverless cars because there is no ability to hold a human responsible for his or her actions while driving?
• How do you ascribe value to certain moral choices that a car might have to make in the case of being unable to avoid an accident?
• Could driverless cars become so widely accepted as the safest option that humans have their driving privileges revoked, leaving the roads to be operated only by artificial intelligence?

I haven't done a whole lot of research on the subjects, but I do find that talking to friends who don't look at these issues from an academic standpoint is pretty helpful to get an idea of what questions are important for the general population. I would recommend if anyone is having trouble coming up with a research question for the SSHRC proposal to just talk about the subject with a friend who doesn't know much about it. Their questions will help you come up with your own questions.