SOC 241 CC:AI, LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION
How has AI changed the ways we communicate and move through the world, from online shopping, to media content, to how we talk to each other, and how we interact in the workplace? What are the consequences of the continued, unregulated growth and applications of AI for human communication? How do data centers powering AI contribute to scarcity of water and electricity? How do practices around data centers and data farming reproduce social and economic inequality? Can we avoid AI? What are the human costs of AI? We face these questions every day, sometimes without being aware that we are doing so. Over the course of the semester, we will explore the role of AI in everyday interactions with others, and the way we move through the world, with a critical eye to how AI influences social, environmental, and economic structures. We will draw on the disciplines of sociology, linguistics, environmental studies, media studies, and communications to aid us in this endeavor. Through these lenses we will interrogate the role of AI in our individual lives, as well as social structures. Our goal is to critically examine the harms and benefits of AI, so that we can make informed individual decisions about how we will interact with AI. We will accomplish this through use of various forms of media, discussions of current developments as AI technology continues to grow, and debates over it flourish. We will also occasionally use AI itself to question and understand how it structures the ways that we communicate and live in the world. Students will ultimately write an AI position statement to guide their future AI use.
Enrollment Limit
Enrollment limited to 28 students.
Attributes
CC, MOIB, MOIE