Writings and Publications
THE PLAY’S THE THING
Professor Epstein was awarded the Outstanding Service Award by the ACM Special Interest Group in Computers and Society (ACM SIGCAS) in 2003. His award plaque said "A Playwright Extraordinaire". Insofar as we know, neither Arthur Miller nor William Shakespeare found this designation unsettling. Professor Epstein has done a lot of writing about the social implications of computing, and that writing has included quite a few plays, including the following plays that focus on issues in computer security:
- ELDERCARE VR – A play about identity theft
- MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRIC – A play about cybercrime
- NORA – A play about cognitive hacking
- COMPUTER SECURITY – A play about, well, computer security
The following plays focus less on security issues and more on issues in computer ethics and the social implications of computing. Two of these plays focus on the social implications of Artificial Intelligence (what happens when machines get to intelligent and another focuses on the risks in nanotechnology:
- MAD MAX – What happens if an AI system goes criminal?
- THE SUNSHINE BORGS – What happens if computers surpass humans in creativity (like, in writing plays)?
- NANOBYTES – What happens if nanotechnology introduces a new kind of virus, a virus that infects humans, not computers?