第1章コンピューターサイエンス入門

Although data scientists can produce immense value for business and research alike, their work also raises significant social concerns. For example, web browser history tracking enables companies to target advertising of products to people and also allows for targeting of political advertisements. In Antisocial Media, Siva Vaidhyanathan argues that the “impact of Facebook on democracy is corrosive [because political campaigns] can issue small, cheap advertisements via platforms like Facebook and Instagram that may target “groups as small as twenty, and then disappear, so they are never examined or debated.” This undermines the process of discussions among voters in democracies like the United States, as well as countries like Germany, United Kingdom, and Spain, which spent the most on targeted political advertising on Facebook in the spring of 2019.¹¹ Given their lack of transparency, such ads are a questionable practice. Another interesting topic worth mentioning here is targeted advertising toward children.¹² It is important to consider the ethical implications of using the data collected through tracking, especially when it comes to targeting at-risk populations. It raises questions about the accountability of platforms and advertisers in safeguarding users’ rights and ensuring transparency in how data is used for these purposes.

11 Statista, “European Elections: Countries that spent the most on targeted political advertising on Facebook from March 1 to May 26, 2019*,” 2019. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1037329/targeted-political-ad-spend-on-facebook-by-eu-countries/ 12 Maya Brownstein. Harvard study is first to estimate annual ad revenue attributable to young users of these platforms. January 2,

2024. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/01/social-media-platforms-make-11b-in-ad-revenue-from-u-s-teens/

Computer science fights climate change and limits the impacts of climate catastrophes by enabling technologies for decarbonization through power consumption optimization and advancing renewable energy sources. Numerical weather forecasting not only supports our everyday lives but also helps climate scientists determine the precise locations for wind turbines and simulate how they should be designed to enable the greatest energy production. To support the power grid, data science methods can help predict peak power consumption, optimize power sources to produce exactly the right amount of power needed, and adjust power storage to reduce the amount of energy that needs to be generated from nonrenewable sources. Computer models and algorithms assist energy engineers in optimizing building air conditioning and power demands so that they efficiently serve the people living, working, and playing within them.

Although computer science has been used to support scientific discovery, the theory of knowledge of computer science has historically been considered quite different from that of the natural sciences, such as biology, physics, and chemistry. Computer science does not study natural objects, so to most, it would not be considered a natural science but rather an applied science. Unlike natural sciences such as biology, physics, and chemistry, which emphasize the discovery of natural phenomena, computer science often emphasizes invention or engineering.

However, computer science is today deeply interdisciplinary and involves methods from across science, mathematics, and engineering. Computer scientists design, analyze, and evaluate computational structures, systems, and processes.

• Mathematics plays a key role in theoretical computer science, which emphasizes how a computational problem can be defined in mathematical terms and whether that mathematical problem can be efficiently solved with a computer.

• Engineering plays a key role in software engineering, which emphasizes how problems can be solved with computers as well as the practices and processes that can help people design more effective software solutions.

• Science plays a key role in human-computer interaction, which emphasizes experimentation and evaluation of the interface (boundary) between humans and computers, often toward designing better computer systems.