The year is 2025. Big Tech companies and numerous startups have created apps that use facial
recognition and analysis to track users’ “well-being.” Such apps are now standardly included on
smartphones (e.g., Apple Health), and evidence shows that roughly 50% of all smartphone users use these
apps. The most popular is an app called “Thalia”
Either on your own or with a partner, write a fictional newspaper op-ed (600-800 words) about Thalia.
The op-ed should begin with the line: “It’s on your phone, it’s in the news. Thalia, an app that uses facial
recognition and analysis to monitor users’ mental health, has taken the world by storm. But what does it
mean for us and our society when AI tells us how happy we are?”
Writing for a general audience of readers, discuss the fictional app “Thalia,” arguing its sociotechnical
benefits and detriments. Your opinion piece must take a clear stance: if you and your partner agree that
Thalia is beneficial in some ways and detrimental in others, you can (of course) say this, but you should
make a choice about which benefits/detriments outweigh the others. Such a choice should reflect whether
Thalia is more utopian or dystopian.
Please cite and discuss the following four articles in your response to this assignment:
• Stark, L. (2019). Facial recognition is the plutonium of AI (Week 3 Reading)
• Zuboff, S. (2015). Big other: Surveillance capitalism and the prospects of an information
civilization. (Week 4 Reading)
• Buchanan, R. (1992). Wicked problems in design thinking. (Week 4 reading)
• Seberger & Patil (2021). Post-COVID public health surveillance and privacy expectations in the
United States (Week 6 Reading)
Format:
• Standard formatting requirements apply (See syllabus)
• Submissions should include a headline, a by-line (i.e., both authors names), and use language that
is accessible to general readers (i.e., non-specialists)
• References to each of the four required articles (bulleted above) should be in APA format
• Submissions should be between 600 and 800 words (not including references and bibliography)
Grading Rubric:
• Formatting: 6pts (1pt per formatting requirement: headline, byline, accessible language,
references to each of the four required articles, APA reference format, word count)
• Clear position about Thalia: 3pts (e.g., sociotechnically beneficial / utopian; sociotechnically
detrimental / dystopian; both, but one outweighs the other)
• Demonstrate understanding and use of the four bullet-pointed articles above: 16pts
o (4pts per discussion of each article)
