AI Ethics in Business and Society

Catalog description

This multidisciplinary course invites students to inquire into the emerging and dynamic technological field of AI using conceptual frameworks drawn from the academic discipline of philosophical ethics. It begins with a basic introduction to AI technologies as well as philosophical ethics, and brings into broad view the effects and implications of AI for society, both positive and negative. It then focuses more narrowly on a series of ethical issues (including negative, downside risks as well as positive, upside potential) that cut across different business sectors and contexts for innovation. For each of these issues, students will be asked to consider specific, real world business cases, analyze them in reference to primary-source philosophical texts, and respond - in an in-class debate format, as well as in persuasive essays written in class - to a guiding question about whether and if so how AI can be used ethically in that context. The assumptions guiding the course are that we are all living through a time of tremendous change, and in order to survive and thrive through this period of change we need to challenge ourselves to think critically and creatively in general, and particularly, about the ethics of AI.