25 of the Digital Society glossary’s terms, each with the part of the syllabus where you first meet it.
A portable, touchscreen computer, larger than a phone and usually without a physical keyboard, controlled mainly by touch.
Choosing which people see an advertisement based on data about their characteristics, location or online behaviour.
The family of protocols on which the internet runs; the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and routes data between networks, and the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) checks that data arrives complete and in order.
The view that technology develops according to its own logic and is the main cause of social and cultural change, so that society adjusts to new technologies rather than shaping them.
A cluster of related innovations that spreads through the economy and society and changes how people produce, communicate and live over several decades, such as the age of information and telecommunications that began with the microprocessor.
A hypothetical future point at which AI surpasses human intelligence and improves itself so rapidly that technological change becomes uncontrollable and unpredictable.
The delivery of medical care at a distance using digital communication, such as video consultations, remote monitoring of patients and the electronic exchange of images and test results between clinicians.
The control of a robot or vehicle by a human operator from a distance, using data sent back from the machine's sensors, so that the operator can act in places that are dangerous, remote or hard to reach.
A fictional set of rules devised by Isaac Asimov in 1942: a robot must not harm a human or allow a human to come to harm, must obey human orders unless this conflicts with the first law, and must protect itself unless this conflicts with the first two.
A property of a system in which elements are linked so closely and act so quickly on each other that there is little slack or time to stop a fault from spreading.
A way of describing how the number of steps an algorithm needs grows as its input grows, for example in step with the data (linear) or much more slowly (logarithmic).
The process by which faster transport and communication technologies reduce the time needed to move people, goods or information across space, making distant places feel closer.
Respect for, acceptance of and appreciation of the diversity of cultures, religions, beliefs and ways of life, combined with recognising others' rights to hold views different from one's own.
Free software and a volunteer-run network that hides users' identities and locations by sending their traffic through several encrypted relays; it is the most common way to reach the dark web.
An organisation of workers that acts together to improve pay, conditions and job security, mainly by negotiating with employers on behalf of its members.
The set of examples a machine learning algorithm learns from. The quality and representativeness of the training data largely decide how accurate and fair the resulting model is.
A change in the basic form, structure or function of something, so that it works in a fundamentally different way from before.
A tiny semiconductor switch that controls the flow of electricity; transistors are the basic building blocks of every modern processor and memory chip.
The physical path, such as copper cable, fibre-optic cable or radio waves, along which data travels between devices in a network; also called a channel.
A family whose members live in different countries but keep a sense of shared belonging and responsibility, often through regular digital communication and money sent home.
An organisation that employs people to run many fake or anonymous accounts in order to spread propaganda, attack opponents and create a false impression of public opinion.
A thought experiment in which a person must choose whether to divert a runaway vehicle so that it kills fewer people, used to test intuitions about consequences, duties and the difference between causing and allowing harm; often applied to autonomous vehicles.
Deliberately posting inflammatory, offensive or off-topic content online to provoke, upset or disrupt other users.
A test, proposed by Alan Turing in 1950, of whether a machine can imitate human conversation so well that a human judge, communicating by text alone, cannot reliably tell the machine from a real person.
A form of authentication that requires two different types of evidence, for example a password (something known) and a code from a phone (something owned).