Essay/Term paper: What should and shouldn't computer be allowed to run

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Technology

What Should and Shouldn't Computer Be Allowed To Run


Computers have always scared people. Not just because they can be
confusing and hard to operate, but also because how they affect peoples everyday
lives. What jobs should highly advanced computers be able to run? This
question can involve ethics, privacy, security, and many other topics.
What jobs can and can't we leave to the computer? As computers grow
more and more advanced, not to mention complicated, so grows the number of job
applications that can be filled by computers. But can we leave a job such as
doctor to a highly advanced computer system? There are a great deal of moral
issues involving that. What would happen if the doctor made a mistake? Could
you sue the computer? What about the computer programmer? One error in the
program could mean death for a patient. One job that I'm sure many people would
give to a computer if they had the chance would be a lawyer. This eliminates
the problem that occurs when someone with money is in trouble. They buy the
best lawyer money can buy, but the person without any money cannot afford the
great lawyers the other guy has. With this system, one single lawyer program
could be provided to everyone so that the process of dispensing justice is much
more fair. What about a judge and jury? Could a computer replace them? Is it
right for a computer to pronounce sentence on an individual?
Because computers don't have any kind of actual thought or will, some
jobs would be perfect for computers. Security would be a good job for a
computer to handle. People like their privacy and don't want to be watched over
by someone all the time. If computers could tell if a crime is happening
without a human to point it out, it might be alright to install these systems
everywhere to detect crimes taking place without interfering with someone's
privacy. I'm not talking about "Big Brother" from 1984, but something that
would be fair to everyone.
There is also the problem of changing jobs due to advancements in
computer technology. There will be the same number of jobs available, but not
at the same levels. More education will be needed for these new jobs.
Computers might take away quite a few jobs from people doing manual labor on an
assembly line, but at the same time, if something breaks down, there will have
to be someone to come in and fix it. This is the affect computers will have as
they become more and more advanced. The only problem with this is that some
people may be unwilling to change. It would be hard for someone who has worked
in manual labor all their life to suddenly become a computer technician. That
is one of the costs we must have to live with though if there are to be
advancements. But what about even further into the future? Will by that time,
computers be so advanced that they can fix themselves and "evolve" on their own?
Certainly then there would be job scarcity due to these technological
advancements.