AI and Society

A Certificate of Attendance is awarded to participants who attended daily lectures for the duration of the course.

This tutor-led, in-person course is 3 days in duration and is made up of 7 sessions for a total of 10.5 contact hours.

Dates: 6-8 December 2024

Summary of content

In the mid-1950s, researchers in mathematics, administration, and engineering melded formal theories of problem solving and intelligence with another powerful new tool for control: the electronic digital computer. This course briefly introduces you to the multi-century long historical forces that informed this fabled inflection point, as well as the forces that shaped the development of artificial intelligence (AI) thereafter. These complex histories provide rich evidence with which to calibrate speculation about AI and AI Ethics in the decades ahead. 

Session 1: History & Nature of AI

Session 2: Attempts to Conceptualise ‘AI’ 

Session 3: Prehistories of AI and Measures of Progress 

Session 4: Genealogies of Conditioning

Session 5: The Hard Ecological Limits on an AI Future

Session 6: Synthetic Media

Session 7: Non-Use

Learning outcomes

As a result of the course, students will gain a greater understanding of the subject and should be able to:

• discuss the ethical and societal challenges of AI with an understanding of its history and its relationship to other disciplines and technologies  

• identify the capabilities of current AI systems, their key applications and the potential ethical and societal challenges of those applications

•  evaluate key ethical and societal challenges arising from the use of AI and the existing critical literature  

• analyse the strengths and weaknesses of current governance approaches for addressing the challenges posed by AI