For Monday Sept. 22nd: 1. Begin on a 4th blog post. The basics are: write up something that connects you to AI infrastructure. That is, how are you connected to Data Centers and/or how are you responsible (or not) for data center development. 2. Read Norcross: Puppies, Pigs, and People: Eating Meat and Marginal Cases (warning: portrayal of fictionalized animal abuse). This will give us a kind of account of responsibility that may have some parallels with diffuse responsibility.
For Wednesday, Sept. 24th: Finish work on the 4th Blog post. We’ll continue the discussion of moral patienthood, moral agency, and moral responsibility.
For Friday, Sept. 26th: We’ll bring together some of our discussions from Monday and Wednesday on morality and responsibility with some details about data centers. Read a few of your colleagues’ blog posts on this as well as this fairly technical paper from google researchers. We’ll also want to start thinking in more detail about the concept of responsibility beyond just the parallel to Norcross’ examples of Fred and factory farming. For the couple of you who were asking, here’s the debate I did with Kaitlyn Haynal from Comm and Digital Studies on AI and the Environment. (Note: 1. I don’t sound like that. 2. I don’t necessarily agree with what I’m saying here). It’s not required viewing.
In the same spirit as your blog research, you might listen to/read the transcript from a radio show called On Point about Memphis and Colossus.
Also, for Friday. Think about what it is that concerns you about AI ethically. We’ll discuss this in class.
Monday, Sept. 29th. We’ll continue the discussion of what ethical issues are arising in the development of AI. But, since we spent so much time (and passion) on the issue of creativity, let’s also talk about AI and creativity. It seems to me that one reason this gets people going is because we think of this as uniquely human. Let’s read this fairly systematic attempt to get at this exact point: The Curious Case of Uncurious Creation by
Lindsay Brainard. And, write up your fifth blog post on the connection between this and ethics. Read the full prompt for details.
Wednesday, Oct. 1. Read this piece: “What do LLMs do when Left Alone: Evidence of Spontaneous Meta-cognitive patterns?” Then, go to playlab.ai and experiment with the prompt used in the piece. For example, they are using different interfaces and limits than playlab.ai allows. So, tweek the instructions to fit with our constraints. Then, write up your sixth blog post on what your experiment was, what you expected, and how the AI(s) did or didn’t meet those expectations. Finally assess implications for creativity and ethics.
Friday, Oct. 3. We’ll continue with the discussion of ethics. One place to continue is with this interview with Mustafa Suleyman, the head of AI at Microsoft. I normally would not say this, but read the comments, especially for the content on why he’s wrong/how he’s mischaracterizing the debate, etc.
Monday, Oct. 6th: Read chapter 5 from Richard Seymour’s The Twittering Machine, We Are All Liars. And then consider how AI changes this analysis. Does it exacerbate the problem? Give us possible solutions? Both? Also look at this summary of survey data from Pew on polarization. And, this survey on sources of information.
Wed. Oct. 8th: Read this piece called “AI is coming for Culture”. It connects three things: The algorithm, our earlier concern with creativity, and politics. Send me an email if there’s a paywall for you. Here is a link if the original doesn’t work for you. It’s just the text of the article.
For Friday Oct. 10th: Read Ch. 6 from The Twittering Machine, “We are All Dying.” Also keep working on a seventh blog post which address AI in relation to the issues raised by Seymour about information overload (“What if information is like sugar?”) and the evacuation of meaning (“The Twittering Machine is a furnace of meaning.”).
Course continues: Unit 3 Politics and AI