AI, Ethics, and Society

HDS 3267 Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The radical upswing in engagement with artificial intelligence over the last several years has outpaced systematic ethical reflection about its impact, benefits, and risks. This research seminar identifies and evaluates conceptual resources for thinking through this cultural shift—ranging from the activities of AI businesses to the human, environmental, religious, and social impacts and possibilities. A distinctive throughline is a diagnostic framework for AI harms and mitigations that surfaces physical and existential threats, infrastructure-level inequities, psychosocial and cultural harms, and the narratives that normalize or conceal them. Seminar participants will work collaboratively in small groups to research particular topics, bringing bibliographies and analysis to the seminar for discussion. Final projects will concretize work on specific issues in AI and ethics (e.g., research paper, policy memo, or evidence-backed design critique) and develop current bibliography for those topics. No programming background required; technical students are welcome. Permission of the instructors required (see Canvas site to apply). Enrollment limited to 20.