Governing Artificial Intelligence: Law, Policy, and Institutions

Catalog description

This course examines the landscape of AI governance in an era of unprecedented technological acceleration. Since the deep learning revolution, AI has advanced at a remarkable pace, with frontier AI demonstrating rapidly expanding capabilities in recent years, leading some experts to predict the arrival of artificial general intelligence (AGI) in the coming decade. The development of AI systems will have transformative effects across multiple domains--reshaping the personal, economic, and political lives of citizens, reconfiguring societies, and altering geopolitical dynamics. By focusing on "governance" rather than simply "policy" or "ethics," we examine the full spectrum of mechanisms shaping AI design, deployment, and dissemination: from formal legal regulations enacted by governments, such as the EU AI Act and U.S. Executive Orders, to the professional norms, standards, and responsibilities emerging from technical communities and AI experts. The course takes a dual perspective, analyzing both domestic governance structures within nations and the evolving landscape of global governance arrangements necessary for managing AI's cross-border implications. The course will cover the AI policy debates related to balancing innovation and safety in a variety of contexts, from autonomous vehicles and weapons, to social media and elections. Cross-cutting themes will include: how law and policy affect the way important societal decisions are justified; the balance of power and responsibility between humans and machines in different settings; the incorporation of multiple values into AI decision-making frameworks; the interplay of norms and formal law; technical complexities that may arise as society scales deployment of AI systems; AI's implications for transnational law and governance and geopolitics; and similarities and differences to other domains of human activity…