PHIL 241: Foundations of Ethics and AI

PHIL 241-001: Foundations of Ethics and AI
(Fall 2024)

12:00 PM to 01:15 PM MW

Planetary Hall 122

Section Information for Fall 2024

Data-driven technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) have become a central element of our lives, shaping us and our society in both subtle and profound ways. Like other technological innovations, AI has the potential to improve our lives, but it also has the potential to change our society for the worse. Careful analysis can help us make sense of the present sea of AI hype and identify ways to mitigate the social harms posed by these technologies. This course will give students a toolkit to critically reason through the ethical and societal issues raised by AI and other data driven technologies. The course will approach these issues through diverse disciplinary perspectives from philosophy, computer science, sociology, history, film, and more. It will examine how and why ethical issues arise in the design, development and deployment of AI technologies in high-stakes domains, including large language models, facial recognition technology, recidivism risk assessment tools, predictive policing, AI-generated art, dating apps, social media, militarized drones, emotion recognition technology, and deepfakes.

Throughout the course, we will examine how the social, ethical, and technical details of a particular case study might inform our thinking about a range of morally salient topics, including automation, surveillance, climate change, oppression, inequality, theft, colonialism, migration, accountability, resistance, and justice. Overall, students will learn how to think critically and systematically about the ethical issues posed by emerging data-driven technologies, and how to evaluate different approaches to characterizing and mitigating these issues.

Course Information from the University Catalog

Credits: 3

Examines the relationship between ethics and Artificial Intelligence. Introduces several philosophical approaches, ethical theories, and methods for analyzing the stakes of Artificial Intelligence. Explores the foundations of Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, and big data, a range of AI applications and their attendant ethical concerns, and potential avenues towards resolving ethical dilemmas in Artificial Intelligence, while harnessing its potential benefits. Equips students to more effectively navigate the evolving AI-enabled technological landscape in our increasingly digital society. Offered by Philosophy. Limited to three attempts.
Schedule Type: Lecture
Grading:
This course is graded on the Undergraduate Regular scale.

The University Catalog is the authoritative source for information on courses. The Schedule of Classes is the authoritative source for information on classes scheduled for this semester. See the Schedule for the most up-to-date information and see Patriot web to register for classes.