KEVIN LIN: Hi.
Welcome to today's
Change Seminar.
I wanted to introduce Josh Hug.
He's an Associate Teaching
Professor at UC Berkeley.
And I think actually
the best way
to introduce Josh is to
search him up on Google.
And you see halfway
down the page,
there's actually an article
on the school newspaper
or the school blog.
You would think that
would be terrible news.
No teacher or professor wants
to be on the school blog, right?
But if you actually look
at the title, it says,
"Thank You, Josh Hug."
And I think what's really
special about that--
I actually know the
student who wrote it.
Her experience was that she came
to Berkeley, not necessarily
because that was what
I think was the best
fit for her
initially, because it
was a large school, big state
school, competitive majors,
and so forth.
I think her first choice was
actually a small liberal arts
college.
But then coming to Berkeley,
and taking Josh's course--
the 1400 person--
of all of the courses
she could have taken,
the 1400 person course
with Josh was the one
that really made her
feel appreciated,
and that she found her
place in that course.
So I think that sets the tone
for what Josh will be talking
today, and how learning
about the ways in which he
can emphasize not only
being good programmer,
an honest programmer, but
an honest person as well.
So I want to all to give a
warm welcome to Josh Hug.
And he'll be talking to us today
about embedding social impact
awareness into
introductory CS education.
JOSH HUG: All right.
I'm good.
I'm miked up.
So I'll just leave this on here.
Thank you, Kevin.
So Kevin's my former student.
He was an undergrad in my
class, then later, he was my TA.
I will take credit
for his career,
unless it goes badly, in which
case I will disown Kevin.
Just kidding.
So today, I'm going to be
talking about my efforts
primarily in my data structures
course to bring social impact
awareness.
And actually,
developing-- the phrase
I use developing the
whole person in 61B,
as alluded to in this
newspaper article.
So just to get a sense
of who's in the room, who
here is an undergrad?
OK.
Who here's a grad student.
All right.
Faculty?
OK.
And who here teaches courses--
actually, who here TAs?
OK.
Who here is in
charge of courses?
Just to get a flavor.
And who here has in
mind a career which will
be primarily teaching-focused?
OK, good.
So I've got a few of you here.
So my goal is to indoctrinate
you into-- and some of you
already on this page.
In fact, being in
this room, you're
probably already on this page--
to really consider the
full scope of what it's
possible to do in education.
My teaching has evolved a lot.
And that's going to be a
little bit of the story today.
And I've realized that
there's quite a lot that we
can do that I never would have
really considered possible.
I've seen my horizons widen
quite dramatically over time.
I think about how
maybe 12 years ago,
when I was in CS, there
certainly wasn't, in my mind,
a lot of--
I've never been somebody
who's been an activist
or really pushing
for social change.
And while I want the
world to be a good place,
that's not something
that was really
at the center of my being.
But certainly, in the
last so many years,
as I realized the impact I'm
having in all my students,
it feels really,
really important.
I get the sense
of being something
like a nuclear
scientist in 1940s,
where there's all
this energy pent up.
And the technology
I'm developing,
it could be used for building
atomic bombs, or energy,
or whatever.
My students are that.
They're going to go
out there in the world
and have this tremendous
lever to move the universe,
and I don't want to screw it up.
So to get a sense of--
a microcosm of my talk here.
This is a picture
of Zellerbach Hall.
It is a 2000-something
person auditorium.
And it's the room we use for the
first few days of our courses
at Berkeley before
attendance drops off
to a nice, steady state that
fits in our official room.
I took the picture.
This is actually not me,
but I took the picture,
so I'll take credit
a little bit.
So I fill more or
less most of this room
on the first day of teaching.
It's such a visceral
experience to be standing there
in front of a couple
thousand people,
knowing that you're about
to take them on a really
intense personal journey.
There's a lot on the
line in this class.
It's the foundation of
their technical education.
It helps decide whether or
not they get into the major.
And there's a lot
of blood, sweat,
and tears that go into it.
So I kind of want to
reflect a little bit
about how I got to this
point, because I think
the evolution of my teaching
does hopefully gives you
some sense of
where you might go,
evolving as a future
educator potentially.
So in 2008, I was a grad
student at Berkeley.
I was a deeply technical person.
I didn't really
do much teaching.
I was a computational
biologist primarily.
And I was a little burned
out on the specific research
field that I was working on.
I liked it, but it
just wasn't really me.
So I was trying to figure
out what to do with my life,
like many people do.
And I remember in spring
of 2008, for example,
McKinsey came to campus.
So there's all these very
deep-pocketed companies
that can show up and try
and recruit students.
And McKinsey, basically,
I remember them talking.
And the message they
basically presented
was hitch your
wagon to our star,
and we'll take you
somewhere very interesting.
You have a PhD.
That's all I need.
You're going to come in.
I'm going to train you to
run factories or whatever.
And it sounded
really interesting.
It was like boot camp to
run the world, basically.
But for a tiny
twist of fate, it is
entirely possible
I would have gone
and done management consulting,
or finance, or whatever.
But I gave a talk at
the faculty retreat
as the president of a
student organization.
And at the lunch at
the faculty retreat,
a professor approached me and
said, hey, I'm Dan Garcia.
That was a great talk.
Have you ever thought
about teaching?
That was very flattering,
to have someone come up
and basically say,
I think your talk
was so good that I want you
to teach for me as a TA.
And so I hadn't
really taught much.
But I decided, OK,
I'm going to do it.
And I'm going to go in.
I'm going to teach this summer.
And I did.
I taught that summer.
I taught my own class
the following summer
as the instructor.
And I realized, not only
was I pretty good at it,
but it was really fun.
And it gave me that left
turn I wanted in life.
I just wanted to do something
else crazy and different,
and this was it.
It seemed really fun.
So over the ensuing decade, I
have seen my horizons expand
in so many different ways.
I went from teaching-- my
first class was 40 students,
to last semester, I had 1,550.
My class is obviously
much, much bigger.
My technical
competence-- far better
than it was 12 years ago.
I had to relearn a
lot of data structures
when I was first teaching it.
And then thirdly, and
the thing I'm really
going to be focusing
on today, is
I've actually totally
changed the scope of things
that I'm willing
to discuss in class
or the structure of my class.
I've gotten very experimental.
Every semester, I run a
few weird experiments,
in terms of trying to do
something bigger and bolder.
And so I encourage you
guys try something similar.
So I'll start by just laying
out something we all know, but I
really just want to draw it
out and make it very clear
that students get
a lot more from us
than just data structures,
than linear regression,
than delta epsilon
definitions of limits.
They look to us
for guidance on how
they should live their lives.
Often, if you're
teaching undergraduates,
they are fresh
out of their home.
They've just left home
where their parents were.
They're learning
how to be adults.
They have no idea what they
want to do with their life.
They're looking to you
as a model of humanity.
They look to you for guidance
and what their careers might
be, how one should live life.
And so to give you an example
does another Daily Cal article
about me-- a little weirder--
in the Daily Cal,
where this just
shows that an offhand
remark in class can
really pivot people's
destinies in interesting ways.
In this case, I didn't like
change this guy's life,
but it gives you a sense
of the emotional connection
he had to something that
to me seemed very flippant.
So at the beginning
of class, sometimes
I have groups come
up and say, hey,
we're Blockchain at Berkeley.
Please join us, or whatever.
So after a club came and
gave their presentation,
they said "Go Bears!" which
is the thing you say related
to school spirit at
Berkeley because there
are bears involved somehow.
So I mused in response,
he says, OK, true story.
When I was going to undergrad,
everyone in my family
kept trying to get me to do
the horns gesture for the UT
Austin, and I never did.
I've never done it
still, and I never will.
I don't know.
It just bothers me, the idea
of this like mindless hand
gesturing.
Anyway, so I don't know why.
It's just weird.
I'm just me.
That's the version of the story.
So I said that in class.
Why not?
And this is his response.
OK, so this gives you a
sense of how much things
you say can matter.
His words tunneled deep and
struck something visceral.
Something stirred
deep within me.
An improvised remark delivered
with offhand throwaway
carelessness nevertheless
stuck with me.
To him, it was just
something he noticed.
To me, it was and is poetry--
profound words to live by.
[LAUGHTER]
Right?
And I deny them.
I'm just me, he reassures us.
So what he's getting at here
is that when you're in front
of a 2,000-person room,
you're almost a Paris Hilton,
or a, I don't know, Billie
Eilish, or whoever is the lord.
You're somebody at the front of
a room that seems unattainable,
like an abstract
signifier of a human,
rather than an actual person.
I'm just me, he reassures us.
And yet, in my
mind, I regard him
with some absurd
reverence, project
on to his handsome
beard and knowing,
half-winking smile, a beauty,
wisdom, and virtue inhuman.
Knowing virtually nothing
of his truth-- that is,
who I actually am--
I let him, a stranger, take
some residence in my heart.
And I'm thankful that he treated
it with a respectful grace.
Now, I don't know exactly
how I delivered that much
of a punch with this story.
But it does show you that
there's a lot going on.
And it's multiplied,
in this case,
by well over 1,000 people.
So there's another
angle to this,
which is that as
instructors of a course,
you have more or less complete
and total control about how
a class should be done.
You could decide,
every Wednesday, we're
going to start with three
minutes of jumping jacks.
Nobody did this, but
you could in principle
do such things, right?
And so one thing I
had started to realize
is that, where
possible, I think I
like to take my classes
called Data Structures,
or whatever else, I
like to make them try
to develop the whole person.
And I think this is especially
pertinent for freshman
and sophomore level classes.
And I'll give some examples.
This is where I guess I'm slowly
become a cult leader, right?
I got the guy who's
weeping at my story
about not doing a hand gesture.
And I'm telling you to
develop the whole person.
But I think that is
part of your role.
If you can really do it, you
could be a miniature cult
leader.
So for most of today,
the specific examples
I'm going to go through will
relate to my Data Structures
course.
And to get a sense of
what this class is,
it's a 14-week course,
primarily technical.
It is about 1,500
students I had 49 TAs.
I also had a number of
tutors and academic interns,
but those are the key people.
Kevin-- one of these
TAs at one point.
So this is one of the
three classes at Berkeley
that decide whether or not
you get to be a CS major.
If you do well enough in this
class, the one right before it,
and the one right
after it, then, hey,
you get to be a major.
And there's no
holistic admission.
It's just, this is your grade.
There's just lot of
intensity around it.
And it's roughly equivalent
in the curriculum to CS 143,
if you're a CS student, but
it's kind of a more 373 flavor.
That's the stage.
So to give you a
sense of things one
might do to develop the
whole person, so to speak--
I'm sure there's a
better word for that.
But this is my own naive,
outsider, art version
of how one might do this.
One idea is basic.
I like to give life
advice explicitly
in the middle of class, or talk
about the college experience.
And so for example, in my binary
search tree lectures, which
has nothing to do
with life philosophy,
I spent the first 10
minutes just talking
about growth versus
fixed mindset.
In fact, what I did
is I put up a survey
question with a clicker,
and I said, how many of you
think that anybody in
this class could get
an A if you had enough time?
It's getting at this this
sense of intellectual destiny
versus being able to actually
gain skills over time.
And then I would
display the results.
And there's a pretty
heterogeneous sense of
whether or not everyone could
get an A. Talked a little bit
about the notion of growth
versus fixed mindset, which,
of course, now, I mean, students
are seeing that increasingly
in high school.
But it gave us a chance to
really reflect on the fact
that practice really does
make you better at things.
Another one is a
stranger experiment.
So plagiarism is one of
the worst things to deal.
And I would say, in
a given semester,
I encounter maybe 60 cases,
which is a lot to deal with.
And so I thought,
well, maybe I'll
try something a
little different.
Rather than just saying,
sorry, you got a low grade,
and sending you
off the office, I'm
going to actually bring you in.
And I'm going to make you
interact with me in some way,
and actually reflect
deeply on what happened.
And so I gave them an option
in the spring of 2017,
where you could actually
get no penalty to your grade
whatsoever if you did
a couple of things.
One, if you wrote an incident
report, which if you-- oh,
by the way.
The slides, if you
want them later,
are at tinyurl.com/hugchange
I think.
Is that the right order?
Yes.
Hug change.
Nobody had claimed that
one at TinyURL, so good.
Anyway, so these incident
reports basically
are 50 or so
narratives of students
who never intended to cheat now
reflecting on what happened.
And if they did that, and
they also completed a makeup
project, they could technically
get all their points back,
though it was a
pretty hard project.
Now, I actually
was also going to--
I had a weirder idea, which
was I'm going to get everybody
together, and we're going
to have a meeting inspired
by restorative justice ideas.
So I have a group meeting
with everyone who cheated.
But I reached out to
the US legal team,
because I felt the
weirdness of it.
And they were like, yes, you
definitely cannot do that.
It's a FERPA violation.
So when I say you
have complete control,
you don't have total
and complete control,
because the law will
stop you sometimes.
But I think that,
ultimately, it was
a pretty worthwhile experiment.
I'll give you some feedback
from a student in a moment.
I do want to note
that this wasn't like,
OK, now you're off free.
I still sent people the
Student Conduct Office.
And they had to
interact with that.
But this was a way that I wanted
them really not to externalize
the fact that you were under
all this pressure and cheated,
so now I don't want
to deal with you.
Please go away, and the
Student Conduct Office
will talk to you about it.
But I wanted to make it
part of the class itself.
So I got an email
from a student on this
who went through this process--
so get a sense.
They said, thank you for your
understanding and forgiveness.
We never meant for
this to happen.
Most students don't enter a
class intending to cheat ever.
He said, while this
experience is stressful,
it is also educative for us.
So it gets a little
poetic again.
Later in my life, I'll
walk with extreme caution
to avoid the gray line
between light and darkness.
I will remember this
incident and remember
that when Anakin Skywalker
walked on the gray line of Jedi
moral code, he also
walked on his first step
to become Darth Vader.
Thank you for a great semester.
I look forward to seeing you
in my future endeavors in CS.
Now, I mean, it's a little you
know pop culturaly and silly,
but I really do think
there is something here.
And maybe this was a pivot
in somebody's destiny.
And there are obvious,
huge examples out there,
let's say, like Theranos
and Elizabeth Holmes,
where, maybe
possibly, there could
have been some early moment,
where somebody could've
stepped in and say, hey, maybe
don't seek power at all costs.
Maybe there's something
better to do with one's life.
So maybe it helps.
So the last and final
example I'll give--
and we'll spend a lot
of time with this,
and I'll start bringing
you into the conversation--
is something that
I tried last spring
that was my favorite
example of this trying
to develop the whole person.
In this case, it
was focused more
on social impact awareness.
And this is, by the
way, why I'm here
in Washington,
because I want to give
this talk to
Kevin's class, which
I'll be doing later today.
Not all of the stuff first,
but what's happening next.
So in the last four
weeks of the class,
I have a series of
Friday lectures which are
software engineering oriented.
We talk about big picture
software engineering,
like how does one
design software, what
does it mean to build
large systems, et cetera.
And the third of these lectures
is a full day reflection
on the impact of career.
And so what I'm going to do now
is just demo this subset so you
and get a flavor for it.
And I'm hoping you can take this
as an exemplar of a weird idea
that you can bring to
your courses one day.
So if you want the
whole story here,
in coming to Kevin's
class, I think
this is the right
place and time,
or you can see the webcast here.
So I really like
it when I'm trying
to do something weird to see a
video of someone else actually
doing it.
So this link will let you watch
a whole video of this thing,
or you can check out the slides.
So here is-- I'm going to
switch kind of modes here,
and I'm going to
stop talking meta,
and just give you
a demo of what we
talked about in this class
on this particular day.
So Candy Crush--
I don't know if you guys
have ever played this game,
but it is a mobile
game, primarily where
you move some beans around or--
I don't really know.
So when you play this
game, every consecutive day
that you play, you get a reward,
and the reward is twofold.
One is you get to see that
your counter has increased.
So now you've played
151 days in a row,
and that's something
that's not nothing.
You've spent 151
days getting there.
The other thing you
get is two hours
worth of use of an
item in the game
that somehow makes the game more
fun or interesting in some way.
Now if you miss a day,
you lose all that progress
and you get back
down to day one.
So why does this
exist in Candy Crush?
What do you think?
It's kind of maybe
an obvious question.
The goal is to get
people reflecting.
So why-- why do you think?
AUDIENCE: To get people
to play every day.
JOSH HUG: Yeah, to get you
to play each and every day.
Similar-- Snapchat.
Anybody here use Snapchat?
Who are my Snapchat?
This corner of the room,
this is the Snapchat.
They're doing
better, by the way.
Their stock is way higher
than it was last year when
I gave this talk.
Their user base
is fairly stable.
They stopped losing users--
I think they're in
it to win it now.
So for every day that you
communicate with someone
bidirectionally on Snapchat,
like say Jacob Morgan,
this 110 indicates that
for the last 110 days,
I have sent Jacob
Morgan a message
and Jacob Morgan has sent
me a message, both ways.
So by leveraging this
reciprocity here,
it's a way of encouraging people
to communicate with each other.
So why does this feature exist
Snapchat, just philosophically?
I mean, obviously, I'm
going to take your answer--
to get you to use it every day.
I don't know-- anybody
have another take on that?
AUDIENCE: To keep people
using the machine so you
can gather more user data, and
sell it, and sell advertising,
and then [INAUDIBLE] behavior
manipulation-- surveillance
capitalism.
JOSH HUG: To keep you
engaged, to monitor your data,
and use it.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
surveillance.
JOSH HUG: Glory of
surveillance capitalism.
I'm a big fan of
live slide editing.
I hope that's OK, sound guy.
Let me know if it's
causing you trouble.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: To quantify who
your best friends are.
JOSH HUG: Ooh, quantify
your best friends--
get to know the network--
who really counts.
Any other thoughts?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: You can drive a
lot of repeated engagement
if there's, like, will
they send me back--
I don't know.
There's--
JOSH HUG: What do you mean
"drive repeated engagement?"
Just--
AUDIENCE: It's like
gambling machines.
You can drive
repeated engagement
if people don't know
if they're going
to get a message back or not.
JOSH HUG: Oh, don't know
if you'd get it back.
Yeah, so there's a lottery.
AUDIENCE: Variable
scheduled reinforcement,
to be skinnerian.
[INAUDIBLE]
JOSH HUG: Yes.
The skinnerian lottery of
wondering if you get a reply.
OK, fun.
All great answers.
So what's positive about this?
I want to talk about positive
and negative impacts.
So these two features-- what
are actually-- let's just--
AUDIENCE: It's fun.
JOSH HUG: OK, it's fun.
So we're going to talk
positive now-- it's fun.
What else?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: Snapshot's
investors can have more money.
JOSH HUG: Oh, yeah,
make more money.
AUDIENCE: He said
positive impact.
JOSH HUG: Well, it's good
it's good for the investors.
So is this the world?
Good point.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: It's reassuring.
JOSH HUG: It's
reassuring-- right.
So you-- in what sense?
Elaborate a little bit.
AUDIENCE: You know that-- or
you feel that you have friends.
JOSH HUG: Yeah, you feel--
[LAUGHING]
--you have proof that
you have friends.
Look at that-- there they are.
I don't have to worry--
it's hard to know.
Constraints actually--
really, they make life richer.
So this is a way
of saying, I know
exactly who my friends are.
Thank you, Snapchat.
What else?
Anybody use Snapchat?
Anybody have a
snap streak going?
You guys aren't-- really?
I'm amazed.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: It can
have the weird effect
where, while you have
the streak going,
you're like, oh, I got
to keep the streak going.
And then as soon
as you don't have
the streak going, you're like,
oh, I give up, it's pointless.
JOSH HUG: Well, this
is sort of a side note.
But while I have the streak
going, it feels important.
Maybe I'll call it a positive--
I don't know.
I'm not sure if it's
positive, but when it's over,
it seems pointless, like grades.
I don't care about
my grades anymore.
They're gone.
Very quick offhand anecdote.
When I was in grad
school my last semester,
I thought about signing up for
hundreds of classes and then
just not going to any of them
so my transcript would just
have pages and pages
of fails just for fun.
But I decided not to do it.
Anyway, any other
positive impacts?
What are some negative ones?
That's maybe more fun.
This is Candy Crush and
Snapchat-- either one.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: Sounds like
one more obligation.
JOSH HUG: Mm, one
more obligation.
We have so much to do.
It's sucking up our time.
So this is like morally
deadening, I guess.
What else?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: It encourages
addictive behavior.
JOSH HUG: It encourages
addictive behavior-- yeah.
So there may be some
spillover effects,
like I'm just used to dopamine--
short cycle dopamine release.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: I didn't know
if this was a bonus
or not-- it depends
on the point of view--
but it keeps your users maybe
insecure, or off-balance,
or not wondering
what's happening
or what's going to happen.
I wonder if it also changes
your senses of value
as a human being, or how you
value other people [INAUDIBLE]..
JOSH HUG: Changes your sense
of how you value people.
So you're saying
the people who are
reciprocating with you are--
AUDIENCE: I guess in
some sense, it's like--
or maybe you kind of
feel like your own sense
of individual value [INAUDIBLE]
how much engagement you're
getting from other people.
Maybe you might
you like yourself--
like maybe I'm [INAUDIBLE]
just not interesting enough.
JOSH HUG: Oh, I see.
So if you start
failing the skinnerian
lottery of getting replies, you
think, what is wrong with me?
I think there's something
to that for sure.
I hear the story
that Instagram arises
of such feelings in people.
And you're like,
oh, man, they're
doing so many cool things--
they're not liking my posts.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: You don't make as
much effort to meet in person.
JOSH HUG: Don't
make as much effort
to meet in our actual world
for which we are designed.
I think that the physical
world is generally much richer.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: Maybe this is just
more general opportunity cost,
where every minute you're
on Snapchat or Candy Cash,
you're not reading the news
or not talking to people.
JOSH HUG: Yep, time you're
not spending on other things.
Great.
All good answers.
And so meta point, I like doing
this in a data structures class
because now they've
thought about these things.
Do you think they're
net positives?
What do you think?
Like, the existence
of these, are they
net positives for the world?
I don't know.
Any opinions.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: It seems like
which world is potentially
a relevant question.
JOSH HUG: Sure.
Give me a world
where it's positive.
AUDIENCE: Today, America, tech
communities, universities.
JOSH HUG: So maybe for the
tech world, it's great.
It spurs innovation, knowing
that such things are possible.
AUDIENCE: But potentially
also tech people
are more prone to kind
of falling to the streak
and going for the metrics
instead of remembering
that they're trying to
communicate with people
on these applications.
So that they're doing
it for some idler goal.
JOSH HUG: Yeah, bad.
It's a metric that they pursue
to the expense of better
goals at the-- whatever.
Yeah, OK.
Any other thoughts on this one?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: Features
like that can be
a negative impact on the mindset
or the state of mind of people.
JOSH HUG: So I think what
you're basically saying is
it feels like a general net
negative to the human mindset.
AUDIENCE: I think it correlates
to mental illness a lot.
JOSH HUG: Yeah, correlates
to mental illness.
And so sometimes,
people will say, well,
maybe just mentally ill--
or people who are having
mental health issues
are gravitating
to these services.
Maybe they're causing
the mental health issues.
But I would say it's
kind of irrelevant.
If you're enabling people
with mental health issues,
maybe not so great.
Now actually, let's
just back up even.
So yes, Candy Crush and
Snapchat have these features,
but do you feel like they're
net positives for the world
just to get a sense?
I mean, maybe we'll
focus on Snapchat.
People who use Snapchat,
do you feel like it's
a net positive for the world?
You can say yes.
I know this is
the change seminar
where we're supposed to
be really cynical maybe,
potentially, about
these things but--
AUDIENCE: I think
it's probably not--
there are a lot of
externalities which [INAUDIBLE]
this might conflate
the degree to which we
think of it as important.
But it employs people,
some people find it fun,
and so I guess that's
a net positive.
JOSH HUG: Other thoughts?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: A low commitment
way to stay in touch
with people you probably
don't see as often.
JOSH HUG: So you're saying it's
a net positive as a result.
Like, that's the fundamental
value proposition it provides,
and given the negative
externalities,
that dominant positive is
fine, or it's a [INAUDIBLE]..
AUDIENCE: Both.
Something that comes
to mind is, we're
talking a lot about
Snapchat because there
are social benefits
of communication.
No one has, I think,
addressed the Candy Crush,
is this good for the world.
My core judgment is
immediately like, no,
this is a waste of time.
Just going back to the
opportunity cost argument
that Matt raised,
this is a distraction.
This is just wasting time I
could spend doing anything.
But then my brain went to--
this is just a bit of an aside--
I was wondering if there's a
version-- because some games
actually do things.
Like, if there is an
addictive Candy Crush
version of that game for
folding proteins, I mean,
I would happily
engage with that.
[LAUGHING]
JOSH HUG: What if
you tricked people
into doing something fun
like folding proteins.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: I'm coming
to defend wasting time.
As someone who has had
very small children,
Candy Crush has gotten me
through some very long,
late nights where I needed
something to do to stay awake.
So I needed something
to distract me,
and Candy Crush was--
Candy Crush is something you can
do for a few seconds at a time
and stop to take
care of the baby.
Babies need attention on
a few second intervals.
And so Candy Crush is one of
the best things [INAUDIBLE]..
JOSH HUG: Easy to task
switch in and out of.
Great.
Any other thoughts?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: So I remember when--
I was a little bit of a
late Snapchat adopter.
And when I was first seeing
other people get Snapchat,
I would try to install
Snapchat, and then I
would just balk at
the number of things
that the app had to have
access to in order to work.
And I was like, this is a little
bit down the slippery slope of,
what are all the things that I
expect apps to ask for in order
to use an app.
And I delayed installing it
for maybe two or three years.
And then finally,
there was one person
who would only talk
to me on Snapchat,
so I had to install it.
And then it was like,
this is the defeat for me.
And then also I think--
these apps, I was
just so shocked
at how much battery
life Snapchat uses.
And I was like, this is
bad for my technology.
And it's driving innovation in
a direction-- the industry is
chasing Snapchat and
other apps like that,
and this is bad for the world.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
JOSH HUG: Great.
So let's talk about a different
application that's out there.
Let's talk about Khan Academy.
So I'm assuming everybody
here is familiar Khan Academy,
but just so that we all
are on the same page,
it is a website where you can
go and learn about things.
So if I want to--
OK, I need money, of course.
This doesn't happen when
you go to Snapchat's page.
So if I go--
so I am a learner.
Let's see-- it's different
than last time I used it--
of course it is.
This is maybe what I want.
So I want to go learn
about algebra 2,
and here's some courses
that I can check on--
or click on the imaginary
unit, and so forth.
And it's all here,
and there's videos,
and there's some
exercises, and so forth.
So we've got videos and
we've got, I'm assuming,
some things I can read.
And you can get your
understanding checked
and so forth.
Uh-oh, stop-- what happened?
So we can go and we
can do some math.
4i squared-- I bet
that's negative 16.
I got it, sweet!
But if I need help, I can click
that and here's the answer.
So that's kind
Academy in a nutshell.
So Khan Academy is another
thing that one might
do as a technology worker.
You might work on this product.
And some might ask
yourself-- same deal-- so
what are some positive
impacts that Khan Academy has
on the world?
Actually, out of curiosity,
who here has personally used
Khan Academy to learn things?
OK, great.
So what are some
positive impacts
that Khan Academy
has on the world.
Sure?
AUDIENCE: When you have a
terrible multi-variable calc
professor, [INAUDIBLE]
learn stuff.
JOSH HUG: So it works
even in college.
So it helps you--
have a terrible multi-variable
calculus professor--
learn from the internet.
What else?
AUDIENCE: I think they're
very focused lessons,
so you can look up
something in five minutes.
JOSH HUG: Easy to find something
specific in short time.
What else?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: Compared to
like a traditional class,
it's a lot lower
commitment, which
means it's a lot easier for
people to engage with it
and learn new things.
JOSH HUG: Though,
perhaps not when you're
trying to watch tiny baby.
Yeah, what else?
Other positive impacts?
AUDIENCE: It's free.
JOSH HUG: So it, I'll say,
provides broad access.
What about negatives?
So what are some
negative impacts?
See if you can
come up with some.
My 1,500 person class had
a great time doing it.
Go?
AUDIENCE: So I don't
know specifically
about Khan Academy, but some
of these online systems,
while they help everyone
learn a little more,
they especially help
people who are advantaged,
and they increase inequity.
JOSH HUG: And that's
something I certainly
saw when I built our first
algorithm MOOC at Princeton.
Our students were almost all
students with college degrees.
So in theory, anybody
could take it,
but mostly we were just taking
people who already knew CS
and making them better at it.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
in particular,
they actually had
an algorithm choice
originally for how to measure
progress through the course.
It was based upon--
they'd had a bunch of
people go through it,
and they'd done some
kind of regression they
called machine learning on it.
And so if you ever failed
a question, your progress
you go from, [INAUDIBLE]
10% per question
back to [INAUDIBLE]
to 3% per question.
And so they had this
whole streak thing,
where they actually
really penalized
people who didn't get them
all right from the beginning.
[INAUDIBLE] people,
because they're
trying to be predictive,
and tell how likely it
was that somebody
was going to be
able to pass a test
for the material
instead of focusing on that
person's progress through it.
In general, Khan Academy because
they have so many students
that they systematized
things in a way that
tends to increase that.
JOSH HUG: Interesting.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: How
intrinsic do you think
that is to Khan
academy's overall scheme?
AUDIENCE: I think very true.
That's a longer
conversation, though.
JOSH HUG: Fear of failure--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
intrinsic to the founder,
to their structure of education.
JOSH HUG: Got it.
That fear of failure is
something that the product--
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] something
you go through rather than
reside within.
JOSH HUG: Ah, I see.
Philosophy [INAUDIBLE]--
AUDIENCE: And I think
that relates to--
there's a lot to be learned
in the process of discovery.
So the fact that you could learn
about imaginary numbers in 10
seconds that it took you
on the screen, that process
of figuring out how to figure
out about imaginary numbers
is itself residing in education.
And you might instead
ask [INAUDIBLE]..
AUDIENCE: I haven't
seen Khan Academy,
but I'm guessing it
doesn't provide those life
lessons that you were
talking about [INAUDIBLE]..
JOSH HUG: It's an
amoral educator.
What else?
AUDIENCE: So I guess at
the same time, all of these
have counterpoints.
So the lack of life lessons--
I mean, if the life lessons
are life lessons that
don't apply to you, or
you feel alienated by,
then that's also not there.
So there is this kind of--
the fact that you--
potentially, the model
is that you're isolated.
You're like a
student just looking
at a single screen,
that makes it
so that you're away from
harmful influences as well
as good influences.
So you're lacking the
social class environment,
you don't have a
personal mentor.
But all of those could be good.
JOSH HUG: Maybe good, though.
[LAUGHS] Other thoughts?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
JOSH HUG: Yeah, maybe my
life lessons are bad--
could get the
wrong life lessons.
So what's your sense?
Given that we have
some concerns--
I mean, I'd be curious
what you think.
You thought Khan Academy
is a net positive.
The fact that it exists-- is
the world better than it was?
What do you think?
AUDIENCE: I think
my friends, who
went to work at Khan Academy,
became very depressed
by the vision of
education embodied in it,
leaving the education
industry because of it.
JOSH HUG: Ah!
A few people that one
audience member knows
were demoralized about education
period by having worked there.
That is some inside baseball.
Fun.
So that would be negative
for those people,
because they have
their own impact.
What else?
I mean, what do you guys think?
He has this very
specific perspective.
AUDIENCE: I would be interested
in hearing more about that.
JOSH HUG: Yeah.
Maybe you've got to
do a talk about this.
Well, do you think that
the Khan Academy itself
is a net positive though,
even despite this impact
on your friends.
AUDIENCE: It has a particularly
beautiful exploring derivatives
module that was made by
someone before they actually
joined there--
It was made by a
community member--
that has no questions
and expertise.
It just lets you
explore and play.
And he got hired on
the basis of that,
and then was asked
to make modules
that always were focused
around questions,
and getting the quiz right.
And it's a very quiz
centric education model.
JOSH HUG: Got it.
So there was a--
AUDIENCE: I think that
particular module changed
how I think about and
teach derivatives.
So it's been a--
I think it's been a
net positive for me.
Whether it's been a net
positive for the industry
and our notion of
education, I don't know.
AUDIENCE: It might require
investigation and grant
funding, and the
amount of money that's
[INAUDIBLE] education
initiatives that
is not being funneled
into traditional education
[INAUDIBLE].
JOSH HUG: Interesting questions.
So maybe if we wanted to assess
whether it's a net positive,
we'd start thinking
about opportunity costs,
or how the money could
have been spent otherwise.
Nice.
What else?
Any other thoughts?
So these are the two very
critical takes, potentially.
Actually, let's just
get a rough sense.
How many people feel like
they-- you can abstain.
So you'll have three choices--
net positive, net negative,
I don't really know.
Net positive?
Net negative?
Abstain?
So we're like 50-50
positive, 50-50 abstain.
AUDIENCE: I have a question.
JOSH HUG: Yeah?
AUDIENCE: I believe it
is possible to take--
to listen to the
Khan Academy material
without taking quizzes.
JOSH HUG: Yeah, you
can watch the videos
and not do the quizzes.
And so we could pick
apart Khan Academy more.
But-- and that's good.
Any of these questions we start
discussing-- because remember,
right now we're modeling
a data structures class.
So we could go yet one level
deeper and explore Khan
Academy, but we won't.
And so some questions.
I mean, I think the room,
even though there was maybe
some criticism and some
concern about Khan Academy,
I think the sense was that it
would be better for more effort
to be put into Khan
Academy than Candy Crush.
And so what are some reasons
that people might work at King,
the company that creates
Candy Crush and other games,
rather than Khan Academy?
So again, there are
obvious answers,
but I still want to hear them.
AUDIENCE: They like games.
JOSH HUG: They like games.
So that's just
something they like.
They like games.
That's something [INAUDIBLE]
more interesting to work on.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: I'm not
sure [INAUDIBLE]
salary comparison wise.
JOSH HUG: Probably pays more.
That's probably very, very true.
What else?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: More direct
feedback from users.
You get to feel
like you're directly
impacting people's lives.
JOSH HUG: Yeah, more
direct feedback from users.
You mean because you have
Snapchat streaks and all
that-- snap streaks.
Though Khan Academy
presumably has those metrics.
AUDIENCE: I think they probably
improved their [INAUDIBLE]
but they didn't have
a great job of it.
JOSH HUG: Got it.
Maybe more direct feedback.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
job of it that
Candy Crush is going to monitor
every screen you pause on,
[INAUDIBLE].
JOSH HUG: As you
were saying, Snapchat
wants to know
everything about you.
So as the puppet master
behind the scenes,
you feel like you're
doing something.
You can see everything
you're working on.
Other thoughts?
AUDIENCE: Riffing on
the puppet master theme,
there's a 1% chance this
hypothetical employee is
a sociopath.
JOSH HUG: Oh, yeah.
Funny.
[LAUGHING]
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
JOSH HUG: Riffing on
puppet master theme--
I like that phrase, by the way.
Riffing on the
puppet master theme.
Anyway-- if you're a sociopath,
probably a better job.
We're getting really,
really deep there-- sure.
Other thoughts-- yeah?
AUDIENCE: Candy Crush
feels like lower stakes.
It's getting easier to--
you'll only work
here your 40 hours,
or to not be too emotionally
invested in every decision
that you're making and burnout
on the idea of education
or something.
JOSH HUG: Yeah--
[LAUGHS] or whatever.
So you don't feel
bad if you go home.
Your product is not vital to
people's lives in some way.
It's actually an
interesting thought.
I never really, really thought
about that, but that's true.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
nonprofits,
[INAUDIBLE] nonprofits,
now she works at Xbox.
While [INAUDIBLE] at Xbox,
she's relieved not to be--
JOSH HUG: To have people's
destiny [INAUDIBLE]..
AUDIENCE: --to have
at least a break
from having everyone's destiny.
JOSH HUG: Ah, that's a really,
really interesting point.
AUDIENCE: And plus it's so hard.
It's like, if you're
emotionally invested
and you're working really
hard, and it doesn't
pay as much, that's all--
JOSH HUG: It comes together.
That's interesting, because
my job is really, really hard,
it doesn't pay super
well, but I don't really
feel like, uh-oh,
I'm screwing up.
I don't know--
that's interesting.
I wonder why?
I hope I don't quit now.
AUDIENCE: You don't
have imposter syndrome
is what I hear.
JOSH HUG: Not now.
I've been doing it 10 years.
[LAUGHING]
AUDIENCE: I guess it sounds
like you have a lot of autonomy
with what you decide.
JOSH HUG: That's a key point.
I think I have a
ton of autonomy.
I can do whatever I want.
I have complete control.
Any other thoughts?
Great.
OK.
Sure.
AUDIENCE: I don't know
if it really relates,
but what we were talking
about with nonprofits,
I experienced something
like that too from my past.
And it just seems like it was--
maybe because there wasn't
the money and the prestige,
it was competition within
the organization-- who
could be more dedicated,
have more passion.
And if, for whatever reason,
you couldn't do that,
you were seen as less.
AUDIENCE: Your job performance
is tied to your moral judgment
as a person.
JOSH HUG: Oh, interesting.
Job performance tied
to moral judgment.
AUDIENCE: That's true
in our field too.
JOSH HUG: Yeah.
I mean, that's kind
of interesting,
because as I was
saying before, I've
never been really an activisty
person, and I have to admit--
I mean, I don't know
if it has something
to do with my
upbringing or whatever,
but when somebody is
giving a talk like this,
about I'm going to teach--
the word ethics makes me--
it makes my back
kind of tense up.
I'm like, why are you
talking to me about this?
My immediate assumption is that
it's some self-aggrandizing
thing.
That you're coming out here
to tell me about ethics
to promote your own personality
as an ethicist or whatever.
I don't know why, but that's
just my instant reaction.
So this notion that your job
performance would be tied to,
he is an upstanding person, ugh.
Yeah, that would drive
me a little crazy.
I don't feel that way
in academia, though.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: I do want to note
that the previous question is
the notion of deciding what
is net positive or negative
for the entire world are
a little aggrandizing.
Like, how are we positioned
to be able to say--
JOSH HUG: Sure, sure, sure.
This is just our opinion.
But I'm not trying to tell--
like if I were to come in--
like when I teach
the ethics class,
I have a very hard time because
I don't feel comfortable
going out and saying even--
I feel like there
are some fairly--
like at Berkeley,
I think there's
a fairly common
orthodoxy that Palantir
is a total terrible disease
that must be destroyed.
But I don't feel comfortable
saying such a thing.
So I don't know.
In that case, I
just can't do it.
I'm not sure what it is
about me, but anyway.
So I should note just briefly
that we talked about salaries.
That King and
Snapchat, one big thing
is that they do generate
just crazy amounts of money.
I mean, Snapchat is not
quite profitable yet,
but this company is--
the amount of money
that they're bringing in
is really, really big.
And the number of employees
is relatively large.
Khan Academy, being cute,
they list their employees.
At the time I did this slide,
they had 147, including a dog.
And a lot more money goes
through those channels,
just to give you a sense.
So these are much bigger
fish and financial picture.
Many more of the world's
resources and people
are dedicated to
those two top goals.
Just to get us [INAUDIBLE].
So that is the first part.
The lecture, just
as we just did,
is more or less something
I do in data structures.
We had this discussion at
a scale of maybe 400-ish.
That would be my guess and how
many students would actually
be physically present--
maybe like 500.
I advertised it [INAUDIBLE].
So I'm just going to kind of
whip through the next part.
I do go through a
couple more things.
So the first exercise
on my data structures
lecture was just what we did.
The next part, I talked
about the ledger of harms.
Hey, 61b students.
So some tech leaders have been
worried about these issues.
Here's an early
executive at Facebook
who's pretty famous
for being critical.
He says, "I think
we have created
tools that are ripping apart
the social fabric of how society
works."
Sean Parker, the Napster
guy, says "God only
knows what it's doing to
our children's brains."
There's a technology
journalist who
said, 10 years ago, we
were very excited about all
these different
emerging technologies,
but now we feel like they're
the source of every catastrophe
of the day.
I like this one a lot.
Justin Rosenstein, the creator
of the Like button at Facebook
and the founder of Asana,
said "these are our lives.
These are our precious,
finite, mortal, little lives.
The idea that we're
spending them distracted,
not accomplishing the thing
that we're trying to do
is just painful.
It's crazy."
And very famously, controversial
figure Roger McNamee,
he says "Facebook appeals
to your lizard brain--
primarily fear and anger."
And with smartphones, they've
got you every waking moment.
Now I should note--
just to remind you--
I'm not telling you guys this.
I'm giving you an example of
what we do in 61b, because it
feels a little redundant.
But in 61b, I've just
gone through these quotes.
And then I basically
said to my students,
I think that
technology does have
many significant negative
externalities, but many of them
are still a net positive,
in my opinion-- this is me.
I still use Facebook.
A lot of my friends have left,
so maybe I'll eventually leave.
But my personal sense-- and
I may be completely naive
on this-- maybe--
but these are largely
unintended consequences
by mostly
well-intentioned people.
I'm sure there are
some bad actors,
but my personal
sense is that I don't
think they're as common as
people like yourselves who
go out there, and try and
build products, and then make
bad decisions.
Now I do think that
the workers, and even
executives at the companies,
care, but there is this really,
really, really
important point, which
is when you're not sure
between two hard choices,
but one of them makes you rich
and the other one does not,
you will make the choice
that makes you rich.
So just be aware.
So at this point, there is
a guy named Tristan Harris.
He's put together a
group Called The Center
for Humane Technology.
And he put together
a ledger of harm
so that you, as a budding
computer scientists,
can try and think about
the impacts of your work.
So this group created
a ledger of harms
to collect negative
impacts of social media
and mobile technology
to basically give you
evidence-based information that
you can use to make decisions
about your career.
So if you're not
sure whether or not
you should build the thing
you're being asked to build,
you can consult this ledger.
That ledger includes
these six categories.
They talk about, for
example, research
about how technology
has changed our ability
to focus without distraction.
And so for each category, they
give research and citation
for harms.
And then in my lecture,
I review each of them.
We'll go through all of
them, but for you, I'll
just give you an example.
So the children example, I let
them know that 78% of teens
check their devices
at least hourly, 50%
feel addicted to their
phones, 69% of parents
check their devices hourly, and
27% of parents feel addicted.
And then I tell
the story about how
I have banished my phone
for the most part at home.
I keep it far away from
me when I'm sleeping,
because otherwise I
will think, huh, I
wonder what quantum
chromodynamics is again?
And then it's night and
I'm trying to sleep,
and here I am reading
some Wikipedia article
for no reason.
So the 61b lecture I do
ends with a discussion
of our students' lives.
And I just point out that,
unlike other disciplines,
software is basically
unconstrained
by physics for the most part.
It's not like
chemical engineering,
where you have to worry about
heat, or chemical reaction
rates, or whatever else.
Instead, programming is
almost pure creativity,
and the limit is just what
you can fit in your brain,
or what an entire
organization can
fit in the collective
brains of its engineers.
So just being able to
understand what you're building,
that's it.
That's what limits you.
And so you, as a future
computer scientists,
are able to deliver just insane
amounts of value to companies.
So if you look at, say, Apple,
you take their total revenue
and you divide it by their
employees, it's $2 million
per employee.
So when you walk in the
door, their expectation
as an engineer is you're
providing around $2 million
worth of value.
You'd subtract all of the
costs and get the profits
on the other side.
But the skills that
you're creating
as a student, these companies
want you, nonprofits want you--
and we've talked about some of
the intensity that might come
from working with one of those.
Government agencies want
you, educational institutions
want you.
And you get a choice about
how to spend your career.
Just out of-- maybe
I'll save this one
for later, if you want.
This is a student opinion poll
that I'd asked my students,
where might you work?
So maybe during the
questions section,
we could bring that up again.
But I'll say that quite
a lot of you 61b students
will end up working at
some technology company.
And I don't think that there's
something fundamentally wrong.
I'm not going to judge
you as a human to go work
at a for-profit tech company.
But do realize that, as
a rank and file employee,
you actually do have the
power to effect change.
And that's particularly
true if you're
paid in stock, because then
you partially own the company.
And so then I talk
about some examples,
and we talked about
worker activism
at Google and at Amazon.
And in the course of the
actual class, because we didn't
have that 15 minute
"who I am" warm up,
the pacing actually all
worked out pretty well.
So we just talked about how
Google employees were mad
and made things happen.
My concluding slide
to the 61b folks
was, you get some number
of decades on the planet,
you get 168 hours a week, 40 of
them are working, maybe more.
56 are sleep, and you got
72 for everything else.
So don't waste your lives.
So that's done with the demo.
So this lecture was really good.
I mean, not like--
sorry, that sound lame.
But I had so much fun with it.
[LAUGHING]
It was just really, really good.
I had a great deal
of fun, my students
seemed like it worked well.
And I was like, damn, I did it.
I've got something that I'm
really, really happy with.
I want to do this more.
I'm going to ask people I know
elsewhere to let me teach,
so that's I'm doing later today.
So in terms of what
my students said,
this is the full
feedback from everybody.
We have a weekly
survey in my class.
I'm crazy-- I do lots of
weird stuff in my classes.
I'll just leave them up here if
you want to look at it later.
But it was almost unanimously
positive, and a lot of it
was just like, wow,
that was really great,
and they really,
really liked it.
The only negative was
"hated," one word.
So that's our one sociopath
who's ready to puppet master.
He's like, don't
you dare stop me!
So anyway, you might find
it interesting to read
these pieces of feedback later.
And so there's more to
come in terms of what
I want to do with my classes.
At present, when I say I try
to bring social impact in,
I think the place where
it's punchiest in my class
is this lecture that
I've just semi-demoed.
But I think having it as
a first class thing that
happens in the regular flow of
data structures, that everybody
comes to-- well, sorry,
to be clear, 400 to 500
out of 1,500 students
come to, I feel
like it's fairly high impact.
But there's other places
we could do things.
Like, my discussion
sections don't
have a lot of this, my
homeworks, not a lot.
And I could imagine trying
to actually follow up
with students later
to see, like, hey,
how are you spending your time?
Now this is happening a
little bit elsewhere just
to give you a flavor
of other courses.
So that's my data
structures class.
This lecture today
for you is more
about my personal evolution.
But I should mention we're doing
other things kind of like this.
So 61A, which is the
course before mine,
it has relatively little
coverage of social impact
or any kind of
personal development.
I mean, Kevin brought
some in as a TA,
but I don't feel like the folks
that have taught that class
have had as much of a--
been driven as much by
this as I have been.
Oh, I just remembered-- oh, no,
we end 10 minutes early, right?
I was Berkeley timing.
I thought I had
five more minutes,
but actually, I have
five minutes less.
So I'll wrap up, and then
we'll do some questions.
And we're doing questions in
a different room, I think?
KEVIN: We have some time
maybe at the end for whoever
wants to stick around,
but we're going to have
to get out of here [INAUDIBLE].
JOSH HUG: Sounds good.
So just to wrap up
here then-- sorry,
I just totally had
my timing off because
of my own accursed
Berkeley time thing.
So 61a, there's a little bit
of this, but not so much.
And in our data science class,
we've been trying to really--
in that new data science major,
it's been woven in a lot more.
So to summarize a lot
of text on this slide,
basically, there, it
really is in the homeworks,
and in a couple of lectures
in the discussion sections.
And I'll be happy to talk about
that at our questions section.
So to wrap up, as educators
in computer science, or really
any technical discipline,
or anything at all,
I think it's important to
remember that students look
to you for a lot more
than just whatever
you happen to be teaching.
And I think that really,
you should think about,
how can I bring people more
happiness, self-confidence,
and fulfillment.
Just like, trying to develop
a whole person's identity
while you're
teaching, if possible.
And I think that
if we can just roll
these types of conversations
into our deeply technical
courses about who you are as
a person, about social impact,
I think we can get people to
make better career choices.
Because we don't have
to save everybody.
You can't say, well, we're
not going to fix everything.
You wouldn't say,
we're not going
to save any of
these flood victims
because we can't save them all.
So at least try to do something.
So thank you.
I had a fun time.
So we're going to be here
for four more minute,
and then I'll take more
questions in some other place.
But if you have any questions
while I'm here, let's do it.
[APPLAUSE]
Thanks.
We got anything?
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: Can you
talk a little bit
about the role of
discussion and reflection?
You mentioned this
is a future thing,
but at least my
instinct would be,
students really need to chew on
this and talk with each other.
So what about doing
it in sections,
and having-- and training
the TA's to [INAUDIBLE]..
JOSH HUG: So I want
to do more of this.
The limiting issue there
is really TA training.
I find that undergrad TA's--
I mean, it's hard to lead
these kind of discussions.
And so I want to do more
of it in discussion,
but I worry about how
we'll train my TA's.
That's the thing that
is stuck in my mind.
But I think it'd be
great to do more of that,
but I haven't done any yet.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: So all
those examples were
based upon kind of
just people, as humans.
I was wondering if you
found different impacts
of these examples that
are more specifically
around particular
hierarchies, or impressions,
or biases in
society [INAUDIBLE]..
We talked about race, or
gender, things like that.
[INAUDIBLE] get a
response from students
than when you
present things that
are just about the UX
of a particular app?
JOSH HUG: Sure.
So in this case,
actually, the lecture
was inspired by a Facebook
post that a friend of mine
made with his Candy Crush
streak, or whatever.
And I was like, oh, god-- well,
I need to talk about this.
So partially, the
reason I did this
is because, at least in
the case of Snapchat,
it's something everybody
knows who's in my class.
And so I wanted to
have that resonance.
We could talk about
weightier issues for sure.
The advantage of this
is that, I think,
it comes at them
from a weird angle.
Because if you talk
about, say, race,
then I feel like
people already have
a lot of sort of impressions,
and it feels political,
and it feels almost like they
know where the dance is going
to go before it even begins.
But with this, because
it's something--
it hits them from the side.
That's maybe what
I like about it--
something everybody sees,
but it's from the side.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: I was
wondering if you--
all the examples
you gave and what
we talked about involves
some personal reflections,
and how you, as an individual,
can think about just what you
do a little bit more.
I'm wondering if you thought it
would be useful to give people
a sense about the more
structural, or policy,
or regulation changes that could
be put in place that would not
make it possible
for these companies
to act in these
detrimental ways?
JOSH HUG: Yeah.
And I think that's a
really great point,
is that a lot of progress
that's been made on really
important issues like,
say, automobile fatalities,
has been because of regulation,
not because of protests
on the street, or because
people at the companies
moved on their own.
We did talk about that
in my social implications
of computing class.
My motivation here
is-- because I'm
teaching these students
technical concepts,
I want to make
them feel like they
are responsible
in the things they
do in their professional life.
But you're right, I could
encourage more attempts
to push on policy rather
than just your own company.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
opening them to the idea
that you people who work for
Google, every single attempt
to regulate what Google does may
not necessarily be a bad thing.
JOSH HUG: Yeah.
And actually, I think
that there are examples
I can draw on, where
people in technology
have called for
regulation of themselves.
So I could just let them know
that's a reasonable position.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: I'm curious
if you've ever
thought about
having this lecture
at the start of the term
other than at the end?
Because right now,
I guess, with things
like [INAUDIBLE] to the
data structures course.
JOSH HUG: Well, to be clear,
it's not the last lecture.
So I think that is
an important point.
So I want to not have
it as the like, hey,
everybody, we're done--
well, we need to kill some time.
So you're right.
I could do it at the beginning.
The reason I like it in the
end-ish of course is twofold.
One is, by that point, I think
I've built a relationship
with my students, and I can--
hopefully, when
I'm hitting them,
I have the impact of all
of their sense of who I am.
You saw that guy was like, had
this profound reaction to me.
So if I can take that and
sledgehammer people's heads,
figuratively, then
I think that's nice.
Secondly, though,
there really is a part
at the end of the
course where people
are a little fatigued just
by the grind of the semester.
And so by doing something
a little self-reflective
I feel like is a
welcome opportunity.
But you're right.
I mean, we could do
this at the beginning.
Yes?
AUDIENCE: I got a question from
somebody watching remotely.
He wants to know
what do you think
would happen if he
gave a similar lecture
in a senior level
networking class?
JOSH HUG: If I gave a similar
lecture in a senior level
networking class,
it would be great.
What I think-- especially if it
was at Berkeley because Scott
Schenker would be
giving that talk,
and it would be twice
as good as mine--
that what's nice is if
every faculty member
can roll their own
perspective on these issues,
and talk about them, great.
Do it-- just do it
in all classes, just
a little bit-- my opinion.
Yeah?
AUDIENCE: I'm just
an undergrad student,
so I don't really
have an overview
of what's going on in research.
But I feel like
through my studies--
I've been studying
for three years now--
the question of,
should we do something
or shouldn't we do something,
is completely absent.
It's only how can we
do it, and how can we
do it better and faster.
So from your perspective,
maybe over the last 10 years,
is this notion of should we
do it becoming more important?
JOSH HUG: Oh, yeah.
I mean, I feel like the
awareness among students
is vastly different than
it was 10 years ago.
I mean, especially
being in a sort
of more liberal, urban
course in the United States.
The 2016 election, I think,
was this moment of like, oh,
wow, what have we built?
And I think students
are far more aware
of the impact of their work.
Because I think 10
years ago, 12 years ago,
it was basically a strict
positive to build the internet.
There was no sense that this
was a problem, at least naively,
and that was my sense.
Maybe some people were a little
worried about the future,
but I don't know.
I remember the techno
utopian days very well.
AUDIENCE: I just wanted to ask--
I just wanted say
something I really
enjoyed about this lecture
is when I'll talk to students
about ethical
things, I always try
to put this big
asterisk of like, hey, I
took a bunch of ethics
courses in undergrad.
This has been debated for
thousands of years, literally.
And I appreciated the--
rather than be like,
I'm going to tell you,
I think there's a
"what do we think?"
There's a lot of impact in
asking a question-- well,
do you think?
And someone is
totally like, I never
thought to ask if this company
is doing anything corrupt
or not.
JOSH HUG: Great.
And I think that kind of
dialogue style does work well--
makes people feel
more in control.
Maybe we should call
this for the official,
because I bet somebody
else wants their room.
Where are we going next, Kevin?
KEVIN: It's right
next door, 374.
JOSH HUG: All right, 374.
If you've got more
questions, if you
want to go real specific
about anything, I'll be there.
AUDIENCE: I wanted to say
I really liked it too.
[INAUDIBLE]
[AUDIO OUT]
