SOCY416

Prerequisite: 6 credits in SOCY courses or permission of BSOS Sociology Department. In a short thirty years narrow artificial intelligence penetrated and disrupted the norms and outcomes of every social institution, providing enormous benefits and an emerging wariness. However, computer scientists debate the likelihood of developing artificial general intelligence. Prospects for superintelligence is even more contested. Students in this course will wrestle with some of the social consequences of living in era of the smart machine. What does our current computer-mediated world mean for individuals at work, at home and at play? What should our relationship be to increasingly alluring, ubiquitous, powerful, yet loosely governed technology: superior, partner, subordinate? And who decides: corporations, government, machines themselves? Through readings, films, podcasts, guest lecturers, debate and research students will sort out their own perspective on how humans should benefit from AI without ceding control to machines.