Practical Project: AI - Science and Ethics

obligatory courses

Classroom

This Practical Project class will introduce students to the most relevant challenges presented by the revolutionary growth of AI technologies. As such it will shed light on the broader question of how students and researchers in humanities and social sciences relate to technology, as well as how technology informs academic work performed in seemingly remote topics and disciplines. The challenge at hand and the goal of this class will thus be twofold: first, to practice interdisciplinary curiosity through critically studying the cultures of science and technology and, secondly, to explore the possibilities and implementations of AI through meetings with scientists working at the forefront of this significant technological transition.

This Practical Project class will introduce students to the most relevant challenges presented by the revolutionary growth of AI technologies. As such it will shed light on the broader question of how students and researchers in humanities and social sciences relate to technology, as well as how technology informs academic work performed in seemingly remote topics and disciplines. The challenge at hand and the goal of this class will thus be twofold: first, to practice interdisciplinary curiosity through critically studying the cultures of science and technology and, secondly, to explore the possibilities and implementations of AI through meetings with scientists working at the forefront of this significant technological transition.

During this course we will look for answers to these questions:

- What are we talking about when we talk about AI? What is NLP? What does machine learning mean? Why does any of it matter?

- How does culture keep up with technological change? What does it mean for cultural studies? What should we pay attention to the most?

- Is it the end of college essays?

- Can we still trust anything we see on the Internet?

- Is AI blind to the issues of race and gender?

- How can AI actually make our lives better? How to ensure we can make it happen?

The class is designed to help students develop an AI-related project throughout the semester – the form of which will be determined in the first weeks of the semester based on the size of the group, as well as the interests and the creativity of the participants.

Literature will depend on the thematic focus and the form of the students’ project topics. Some of the general topical literature includes:

- Frankish, Keith, and William M. Ramsey, eds. The Cambridge handbook of artificial intelligence. Cambridge University Press, 2014.

- Mitkov, Ruslan, ed. The Oxford handbook of computational linguistics. Oxford University Press, 2022.

- Solon Barocas, Moritz Hardt, Arvind Narayanan. Fairness and Machine Learning: Limitations and Opportunities. 2019, https://fairmlbook.org/.

- https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/

Knowledge:

A student knows and understands in depth:

- ethical, cultural, and technological determinants related to the use of AI in professional activity related to the study program.

Skills:

A student is able to:

- communicate with diverse audiences and conduct debate on specialized topics related to the use of AI in humanities and social studies,

- prepare and give a presentation using advanced information and communication techniques in English on topics related to science and ethics of AI,

- propose and participate in preparing practical projects (individually and in a team) in the area of science and ethics of AI, as well as the use of AI in humanities and social studies,

- exhibit entrepreneurship in organizing individual and team work,

- coordinate a group or a team, cooperate with others in teamwork, make decisions, assign priorities to tasks when working on a project,

Social skills:

A student is prepared to:

- use the interdisciplinary knowledge they gained in the field of science and ethics of AI in order to formulate their own opinions,

- accept the significance of knowledge in solving cognitive and practical problems related to AI and to seek out expert opinions when they are unable to solve them on their own,

- get engaged and use their knowledge about science and ethics of AI in the interest of their social environment, to initiate actions for the public good,

- responsibly fulfill professional roles, taking into account changing social needs presented by technological change; act in accordance with professional ethics and expect it from others

60% - the assessment of the final project

40% - attendance and participation