SCHL 280OTechnology, Power, & Politics

Catalog

Apps, algorithms, and artificial intelligence are pervasive features of 21st-century life. These technologies promise connectivity, efficiency, and innovation, but they also pose profound challenges to our values and institutions. How are we to respond when technology threatens to deepen existing inequalities of wealth and power, and dystopian futures of surveillance, manipulation, and human obsolescence can no longer be dismissed as science-fiction? In this Scholars course, we seek to reimagine the fundamental concepts of politics - power, liberty, democracy, and social justice - for a world transformed by social media, AI, and other emergent technologies of the information age. As we explore cases ranging from familiar fixtures of our digital lives like TikTok and ChatGPT to utopian proposals for smart cities and space colonization, we'll consider the roles and responsibilities of designers and users, corporations and governments, experts and ordinary citizens - and ask how we can harness the power of technology to improve the human condition while preventing its most harmful consequences.