Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy
This course is an introduction to philosophical issues in Artificial Intelligence (AI). The goal is for students to be able to gain a basic understanding of the cognitive architectures used by Al programmers and reflect critically on research in AI from a philosophical perspective. We will look at challenges to the idea that AI is “real” intelligence, ask whether AI can be creative, and discuss whether AI can be conscious. We will also look at the ethical dimensions of AI. Can AI systems be moral agents with rights and responsibilities? What are the ethical implications of AI-powered applications like directed marketing, facial recognition, and criminal-sentencing evaluation? Will AI usher in a technological utopia, or a dystopian nightmare?
| Lecture | Topic | Readings |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction | |
| 2 | Defining AI | - Norvig & Russell "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach" pp. 1-53 |
| - Wang & Goertzel "Theoretical Foundations of Artificial General Intelligence" pp. 1-11 | ||
| 3 | Classical Challenges of AI | - Searle "Minds, Brains and Programs" |
| - Taddeo & Luciano "Solving the Symbol Grounding Problem: A Critical Review of Fifteen Years of Research." | ||
| 4 | Modern AI | - Buckner "Empiricism without magic: transformational abstraction in deep convolutional neural networks." |
| - Vaswani et al. "Attention Is All You Need." | ||
| 5 | General Artificial Intelligence | - Felin & Holweg "Theory Is All You Need: AI, Human Cognition, and Causal Reasoning." |
| - Smith "Why Machines Will Never Rule the World" (selections) | ||
| - Sheng et. al. "Are Emergent Abilities in Large Language Models just In-Context Learning?" | ||
| 6 | General Artificial Intelligence | - Vaidya "Can machines have emotions?" |
| (John out 2-25 – 2-27) | - Oktar, et. al. "Dimensions of disagreement: Divergence and misalignment in cognitive science and AI." | |
| 7 | AI and Creativity | - Langland-Hassan "Imagination, Creativity, and Artificial Intelligence" |
| - Brainard "What is creativity?" | ||
| 8 | AI Existential Risks | - Chalmers "The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis" |
| - Bostrom "Existential Risk Prevention as Global Priority" | ||
| 9 | Spring Break | |
| 10 | Normative Ethics of AI | - Bryson "Robots Should Be Slaves" |
| - Levy "The ethical treatment of artificially conscious robots" | ||
| 11 | Practical Ethics of AI | - Hao "AI is sending people to jail—and getting it wrong" |
| - Hao "The coming war on the hidden algorithms that trap people in poverty" | ||
| 12 | Domestic AI Governance | - Nissenbaum "Information Technology’s Power and Threat." |
| - Zuboff "The Foundations of Surveillance Capitalism, Chapter Two" | ||
| 13 | Global AI Governance | - Birhane "Algorithmic Colonization of Africa" |
| - Lee "The Four Waves of AI" in AI Superpowers | ||
| 14 | Modern Challenges of AI | - Yildirim & Paul "From task structures to world models: what do LLMs know?" |
| 15 | Modern Challenges of AI | - Sutton "The Bitter Lesson" |
| - Nielson "Reflections on the Bitter Lesson" |