How does artificial intelligence impact human experiences?

Henry W. Pickford, Professor, German Studies

The idea of AI raises epistemological questions about the nature of mind. What does it mean to claim that a machine thinks and understands? In better understanding some epistemological puzzles about AI, we will better understand puzzles about our knowledge of others, and ultimately knowledge of ourselves. Topics may include symbolic and connectionist AI, the computational theory of mind, intentionality, mental content, embodied cognition, functionalism, behaviorism, consciousness, and self-knowledge. Authors may include Turing, Searle, Putnam, Nagel, Dreyfus, Kant, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. Students will gain familiarity and practice with philosophy as an activity by interpreting, evaluating, and constructing arguments. No background in computer science is required.

Cross-lists: GERMAN 171CNS/ SCISOC 171CNS

Owen Astrachan, Professor of the Practice, Computer Science

How does generative AI help and hinder the process of creating, designing, and delivering different artifacts ranging from written to visual and culminating in the design, development, and delivery of web or mobile applications using generative AI? Team-based and peer-evaluated processes for creating digital artifacts for all students. The process and the resulting artifacts will be understood, analyzed, and evaluated through legal, ethical, technical, and policy lenses. No programming experience required or anticipated.

Richard Jean So, Associate Professor, English

This class explores the question of "can generative AI be creative" from historical, theoretical and scientific perspectives. We review the long history of attempts to use machines to automate aesthetic and cultural creativity, from the Renaissance through the modernist period; we read important theoretical and philosophical writings regarding  machine creativity, from Kittler to Boden, to contextualize more recent debates over the capacity of generative AI models to enact creativity; and we read examples of the current computer science literature on LLM and generative AI capacity for reasoning, cognition and creativity, paired with our own attempts to experiment with these models to produce creative output. Our goal is not only to assess and explore the capacities of new AI technologies to be "creative" but also to interrogate and better understand the concept of creativity itself, and how the growing interface of human and machine varieties of creativity are complicating our current historical and theoretical definitions.

Kate Nemecek, Lecturer, Computer Science

In this course, we will use cinema as a lens on society's view of artificial intelligence. We will discuss how this view has changed over time, and how it compares to the real-world status of AI. It will also include a unit on the usage of AI in creating cinema, and its accelerating impact on moviemaking. Throughout the course, we will be learning some of the real-life history of AIs and how a selection of modern systems works. Students should be prepared to watch one movie a week and are expected to participate in class discussions. There will be four projects over the semester. 

Cross-list: CINE 173CNL

Berndt Mueller, Professor, Physics

An introductory course surveying the building blocks of artificial networks, their basic structure and learning algorithms, from the perceptron to modern deep learning networks and exploring the applications of neural networks in a variety of scientific disciplines, their impact in how we acquire and apply scientific insights, and ethical/philosophical questions that are raised by their use. The course will be primarily structured in modules that feature an overview by the instructor, in-class discussions, and moderated student presentations. Background in computer science or physics is optional but not required.

Benjamin Eva, Associate Professor, Philosophy

This course provides an introductory exploration of the philosophical foundations of rational choice theory and confronts a broad range of decision theoretic puzzles and paradoxes. Students will have the opportunity to evaluate several of the most prominent philosophical theories of rational decision making and their relationships to topics in AI, epistemology, causal inference and statistics. We'll ask questions like

• What rules should we follow if we want to make decisions in a rational way?
• What is the role of causal reasoning in rational decision making?
• What role should risk avoidance play in a rational agent's decision making?
• How good are current AI systems at making rational decisions, and what kinds of dangers are engendered when we delegate decision making to them?

Mike Dimpfl, Lecturing Fellow, Thompson Writing Program

Description forthcoming

Sarah Ishmael, Instructor, Thompson Writing Program

Science fiction and video games serve as powerful platforms for exploring the complex boundaries of human identity, technology, and social dynamics. This course invites students to critically examine how narrative worlds in science fiction as well as video games and create "hidden curricula"—embedded messages that shape our understanding of humanity, difference, its relationship with technological evolution - specifically the evolution of artificial intelligence.

A key discussion in this course will revolve around how Hollywood’s depictions of AI differ from real-world AI development. What are the exaggerated risks that Hollywood presents—such as AI revolts or android uprisings—versus the actual risks we are seeing emerge, like the misuse of image generation, deepfakes, and algorithmic biases? How do these differences shape public understanding and ethical debates? We will also discuss how video games and films act as both mirrors and teachers, subtly (and sometimes overtly) influencing players' understandings of humanity. In doing so, they serve as critical platforms for both perpetuating existing stereotypes and offering spaces for reimagining and resisting cultural narratives.

Through an immersive academic writing experience, students will analyze science fiction films and video games like  Mass Effect, Cyberpunk 2077, and Horizon Zero Dawn, alongside films and documentaries about gaming, science fiction, artificial intelligence and philosophy. We will investigate how these media:

• Explore concepts of humanity and artificial intelligence
• Reflect and challenge existing social hierarchies
• Communicate complex ideas about identity, power, and technological transformation

More specifically, we will be playing through the video game Detroit Become Human as a class. Students can play through the game by themselves, play in pairs or groups of no more than three students. Major assignments include a literature review as well as media/content analysis of a game or science fiction show.

Our course texts will include published academic articles, websites and videos that offer examples of methods/data for researching language use. What concepts of difference and sameness differentiate peoples from each other, and how do these concepts reflect, complicate and shape notions of human difference in the United States or differ from them entirely?

To respond to these questions, we will read, watch, listen to, and analyze a variety of media. In addition, we will produce our own texts such as personal reflections and academic essays. Students will learn to research, workshop, revise and edit their own ideas in form and content. In addition, they will learn how to analyze and develop their own arguments from various points of view, articulate and support their positions with research in a variety of forms, respond critically and ethically to other people's ideas, adapt their writing for a variety of audiences, purposes, and contexts, and develop prose that is thoughtful, organized, precise in diction, and structured.

Perhaps unlike other courses you’ve taken, our course texts will also include the writing you and your peers will produce in response to these published texts. That is, some classes will involve peer review and others will revolve around discussions of anonymous samples of your writing. As we look at the writing you and your peers have done, we won’t be examining it to see what is “good” or “bad” about it. Rather, we’ll examine it to hone our sense of how readers might respond to our writing and to learn writing moves from each other.

We’ll start the semester experimenting with and reflecting on strategies for reading challenging texts. As we read these texts, we’ll also analyze them for writing techniques (for anticipating readers’ expectations and concerns, representing work with sources, defining and contextualizing key terms, summarizing texts, and taking a position in relation to others).

Major Scholarly Assignments

1. Comprehensive Literature Review: Students will conduct an in-depth scholarly investigation synthesizing academic research on representations of humanity in science fiction media.
2. Critical Media Analysis of a Game: Students will produce a sophisticated analytical text examining the narrative structures, representational strategies, and embedded ideological frameworks of a selected science fiction video game or television series.

Key Focus Questions:

• How do speculative narratives redefine human ontological categories?
• What implicit messages emerge about technological agency and social difference?
• How do representational strategies in science fiction media negotiate complex power dynamics?

The course emphasizes advanced scholarly writing practices, including:

• Introduction to theoretical frameworks
• Introduction to different forms of media analysis
• Critical analysis development
• Sophisticated argumentative strategies
• Peer-review and collaborative scholarly discourse

By the end of the semester students will have developed advanced academic writing competencies and a nuanced critical approach to analyzing representational systems in science fiction media. This hands-on approach emphasizes synthesizing research, articulating arguments clearly, and contributing to academic and policy discussions about the construction of humanity in sci-fi and gaming narratives.