STS 383 - AI and Society

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

From recommendation engines and generative chatbots to predictive policing and climate modeling, Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are deeply embedded in our everyday lives. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS), Global Media Studies, Anthropology, and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), this course takes a critical perspective on AI by examining the cultural, political, and economic forces that shape its development, as well as the consequences of deploying standardizing technologies in diverse contexts. Through case studies ranging from facial recognition and automated hiring to AI in agriculture, healthcare, and media, students explore how these systems intersect with long-standing issues of power, inequality, surveillance, labor, and governance.

Central to the course is the question of responsibility: Who is accountable when AI systems make biased decisions or cause harm? How can we account for environmental harms in these future-making technologies? What kinds of governance, regulation, or grassroots activism can guide AI toward more just outcomes? Students will also engage with global perspectives and postcolonial critiques of computing that open space for alternative technological futures. The goal of the course is to help students critically evaluate the narratives, infrastructures, and practices that underpin AI while developing their own informed perspectives on how these technologies might be governed and reimagined toward more equitable futures. Anubha Singh.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS