Welcome to the course! In this unit, we will discuss why it is important to study how technology and society influence one another, and the increasing role that computation and artifical intelligence (AI) play in this complex landscape. To kick off the semester, we will watch some Black Mirror episodes (SciFi), discuss the many themes that these films raise, and connect them to numerous contemporary debates.

In this unit, we will learn about the psychological and philosophical roots of moral decisionmaking. On the social psychology side, scientists argue that human beings are "hard wired" with certain moral tendencies in certain social settings. These tendencies do not determine our moral decision-making, but they certainly shape it. Understanding some of these biological dispositions can help us better understand ourselves and why people act the way they do.

On the philosophy side, we will also learn about some of the moral frameworks that can help us analyze how people "ought" to behave in situations; and some of the ways that these frameworks can help people analyze what the "right thing to do" is. The goal of this unit is for you to practice analyzing controversies and situations in terms of the core values in play, using some key philosophical approaches (e.g. welfare, freedom, and virtue).

Over the next three weeks, we will be examining select topics in Science & Technology Studies (STS): an interdisciplinary field that studies the relationship between scientific knowledge, technological systems, and society. Some questions we will explore:

• Is it possible for a technology to have politics and intent?
• Do certain technological developments fundamentally alter how people think and live?
• What does it mean for a technology or a dataset to be biased?
• Who do our technologies over-serve / under-serve?
• Why do we have the tendency to privilege technological solutions over other problem-solving approaches?
• How has scientific authority been used to diminsh other forms of knowledge and experience? How has it advanced particular agendas?

Much has been said in the recent media about what it means for machines to be able to think, the extent to which machines can replace people, and whether it is even possible for Artifical General Intelligence (AGI) to be attained. In order to critically examine these questions, it is necessary to define what is meant by "intelligence" and to understand the different processes through which humans and machines learn.

Regarding human cognition, we will learn a little about how the human brain encode, store, retrieve, and act on information from the environment; and how social and cultural processes influence learning and development. We will also study how machines learn, including some of the statistical methods and algorithms that undergird different families of AIs (e.g., static and dynamic algorithms, reinforcement / supervised / unsupervised learning). Finally, we will discuss similarities and differences between human and machine learning.

A critical examination of the impact that computer-mediated systems have had in various domains (e.g., the environment, health, politics, news media, education, labor, policing, etc.).