CS 181E: Ethical Software Systems
Software systems today have a significant impact on our daily lives. This
raises the question: how can computer scientists design software
that realize our ethical values? This course will introduce technical
tools, techniques, and mechanisms that enable the design and
implementation of ethical, fair, and private software systems. It will
also cover real-world systems that fail to meet these standards. Topics
include online surveillance, manipulative design,
fairness and bias in machine learning, differential privacy, private ML,
and other privacy-enhancing tools.
Prerequisites: CS 54 PO and CS 62 PO or equivalent.
Lectures
Lectures take place on Mondays and Wednesdays 1:15-2:30pm in a room TBD. See the schedule for details.
Instructor
|
Eleanor Birrell eleanor.birrell@pomona.edu Edmunds 221 |
Office hours: TBD
The best way to contact me is by email or on slack. I try to respond to all messages within 24 hours. I also tend to be on campus most afternoons, so feel free to drop by with quick questions or just to say hi! |
Assignments
There will be 10 weekly homework assignments in CS 181E, plus a final
project due at the end of the semester. All assignments will be due on
Wednesdays at 11:59pm PT.
See the assignments page for more
details.
I realize that from time to time circumstances may arise that make it
difficult to meet course deadlines (e.g., personal emergencies, other
curricular or extra-curricular commitmentions, social priorities, etc.)
To accomodate such cases, you get five late days that may be used at
your discretion to submit homework assignments after the deadline with
no penalty. Both you and your other group members must spend a late day
for any group work. Further extensions after you have exhausted all
your late days will be granted only in exceptional circumstances.
Grades
Finishing all the assignments successfully is required to
pass the class. After that, grades are computed on a point basis, as
follows:
Assignments: 50%
Final Project Writeup: 30%
Final Project Presentations: 15%
Participation: 5%
Academic Integrity
In general, collaboration and use of external resources is encouraged
in this course as long as your behavior meets two principles: (1) you
appropriate cite and/or acknowledge people and resources who contribute
to your work, and (2) you take advantage of resources in a way that
helps you learn rather than undermining your learning.
What does it mean to appropriately cite resources? If you talk
to other people (or other people outside your group), you should
acknowledge them in writing at the end of your submission. If you draw
on ideas from written resources, you should cite those ideas. Any text
from written resources should be in quotes and should be cited. If you
use ChatGPT or other AI tools, you should disclose how you used these
tools as described in the AI Policy below.
What helps you learn? I trust you to make informed decisions
about whether various practices will help you learn or not. Please
behave accordingly.
AI Policy
If you use AI-based tools such as ChatGPT or Copilot for writing or writing assistance, you must disclose that use as follows:
- If you include verbatim text generated by an AI-based tool, it should be cited using quotation marks, where the citation should include the prompt used as input to generate the quoted text. For example, "ChatGPT4. Prompt: "What is differential privacy?", February 1, 2026."
- If you include significantly paraphrased text that was initially generated by an AI-based tool, then it should be cited without quotation marks, where the citation should include the prompt used (as shown above).
- If you use AI-based tools to revise writing style (e.g., change the text to active voice) or fix typographical issues, then you should mention in the acknowledgements section which sections were revised using what kind of instructions or prompts. For example, "We used ChatGPT4 to revise the text in Section 4 to correct any typos, gramatical errors, and awkward phrasing."
You should never enter any copywrited material that does not belong to you into an AI-tool, as such use is a violation of another person's intellectual property. This means you should never use text from published papers or course assignments as a prompt for an AI tool.
Disability Accomodations
I am committed to ensuring that everyone can successfully master the material in this course. If you have a disability (for example, mental health, learning, chronic health, physical, neurological, etc.) and expect barriers related to this course, it is important to request accommodations and establish a plan. I am happy to help you work through the process, and I encourage you to contact the Student Disability Resource Center (SDRC) as soon as possible. I also encourage you to reach out to the SDRC if you are at all interested in having a conversation. (Upwards of 20% of students have reported a disability.)