Alan Huff CS Senior Seminar Blog

New things that I learned from our class discussion on data access, security and intellectual property with Hivetracks and the Bee Informed Partnership: 1.   Honeybees will form a clump around the queen when they are swarming, and they will identify a new home based on information from drones leaving the swarm. 2.   Patents are used by companies to attract investment but take years to secure, and software can be patented, not just having copyright. 3. Honeybee hive locations in North Dakota are required to be reported publicly on a USDA site. 4. Some commercial honeybee operations with more than 500 hives are still managed without digital data collection. 5. Code ownership can be contentious for research projects and partnerships spanning different universities. This was surprising to me because I usually think of these as having limited direct business income even if things like Bee Informed Partnership interact with industry. The most surprising thing that I learned ...

 Our ethical discussions in class suggest that most people think that respecting and or caring for others is a fundamental moral imperative, and they tended to focus on religion, sports, the military or other communities that they were a part of. I initially expected the discussion to shift more towards controversial opinions. Each person was only able to give a brief description of their ethics, and we didn't get into contentious topics related to privacy, personal autonomy and property, or highly political opinions. I was sometimes surprised by the seemingly simple ethical frameworks given, with the idea that treating others as one would want to be treated is the primary guiding principle. I think most people in the class would agree that some form of utilitarianism is a good idea, and they also agree that there should be importance placed on respecting people's autonomy but also following social contracts.