AI Changes Everything: Intentions & Consequences

Catalog description

As AI technology advances relentlessly, the most important questions remain unresolved. As students expecting to build, deploy, regulate, or apply AI technology, we are the ones responsible for shaping society and the coexistence of humans and AI. While technological progress rushes us toward superintelligent and autonomous systems, we grapple with the societal question of what kind of future we wish to create. Will AI expand human potential or erode essential human capabilities? Will it democratize opportunity or concentrate power? What responsibilities accompany the ability to build increasingly capable systems? This discussion-based seminar examines AI not as a technology with predetermined outcomes, but as an evolving system whose consequences will be shaped by human choice. Through readings, debate, reflection, and conversations with practitioners and researchers, students examine questions surrounding learning, work, creativity, inequality, autonomy, relationships, governance, and machine consciousness.