Introduction
My name is Thomas Franceschi and I am a senior currently studying computer science. I am a former resident of Morrissey Manor (best dorm on campus) and currently living off-campus. I am from Walnut Creek, California, just outside of San Francisco. I consider myself a fairly outdoorsy person and enjoy hiking and backpacking in the Bay Area and Northern California in general. I’m a huge sports fan and I’ve been looking forward to Notre Dame football all summer. This past summer I interned at a hedge fund in San Francisco where I coded in c++ 8 hours a day, every day, and enjoyed it. I developed a simulation system for trading foreign currencies as well as worked on developing new trading algorithms.
I’ve always been interested in computers and technology so Computer Science was a logical choice for me. I had originally started freshman year planning on being an Electrical Engineer, but circuits just really aren’t my thing. I chose Computer Science specifically because even though I was drawn to engineering as a whole, I really enjoy the creative aspect of coding and the fact that there are so many ways of approaching and solving the same problem. I’m hoping this class will help me get a better idea of the ethical and moral challenges in the industry and how we can effectively address them.
I think artificial intelligence and automation are the largest issues in computer science right now, especially in the context of automated cars and job automation. Is it ethical to automate your own job but not tell your boss? Do we let cars disobey road rules if it prevents an accident? I don’t know, those are the kinds of things I want to discuss in this class. The moral implications of our discipline are easy to sweep under the rug until there is a physical implication like unemployment or death (scary) and I appreciate getting the opportunity to really dive into these topics further and explore the moral implications of such nascent fields where there will surely be mistakes made in the industry in the coming years as everyone tries to figure it out.