ENGL 54.41 Critical AI

While the rapid improvement in generative AI over the past two years, especially as seen in interactive tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, caught many people by surprise, these technologies have a long history. The course takes up artificial intelligence as not a single technology or even a class of technologies, but rather a discourse concerned with the automation of perception (image, sound, text) originating in the mid-twentieth century. Critical AI examines the beliefs, theories, methods, and practices of machine learning as well as the social and cultural significance of these transformative technologies. Giving special attention to the intersection of humans and AI, we will examine the inputs and outputs of machine learning and the ethical issues related to training and using these tools. The large-scale AI projects of the present would not be possible without what critics have called digital dispossession and the extractive function of new forms of capital. In this course we will apply cultural critique to artificial intelligence while learning the fundamentals of how these technologies work and how they fail.

Degree Requirement Attributes

Dist:TAS

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Department-Specific Course Categories

English and Creative Writing