Summary of Week 1

Week 1 has presented you with historical, social and cultural aspects of the emergence of AI technology, with the aim of providing a succinct, yet comprehensive overview of issues that have arisen regarding such technology and which have been selected for their relevance to next week’s unit.

As you will see in Week 2, AI is a disruptive form of technology, in that it has the potential to change the world around us, both in terms of the benefits and harms it may deliver. You will explore both sides of the impact of AI technology in next week’s unit. Before moving on to the next unit, you might like to reflect on what you have learned during this unit, in terms of the historical, social and cultural factors underlying such technology, in order to consider how we might deal with the complex interaction between these factors, and whether there might be some way we can try to make sense of this complexity. Later you will have a chance to examine possible answers to this challenge.

Next week, you will consider the dilemma: what if AI technology, which we know to be highly disruptive and transformative, was widespread throughout society? You will have a chance to work through considerations of consequences of this, and how we might in fact prepare for such a scenario. Regarding consequences, you will have a chance to reflect on issues around diversity, fairness and equality of AI technology, as well as to examine work done within the so-called ‘AI for social good’ movement.

Now move on to Week 2 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .