Courses in the FIG:
UGST 109 FIG Seminar
XXXX | XXXX | XXXX | 15416 | 1 Credit
The recent advent of large language models such as generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs), and particularly their user-friendly interfaces, has made the term AI a household name. We hear and read about the promises and the dangers of AI in the news, social media, and even our courses. Often, these dangers and promises are communicated—by both the hype and the panic advocates—under the assumption that the ubiquity of this technology is all but inevitable: our phones already use it to optimize their photographic zoom capabilities; it is being used to hire, fire, admit or surveil us; it can write essays and emails for us; it can guide missiles, diagnose, recognize, and analyze; while it can also illustrate better than most us, converse, and perhaps even reason, better than us. In short, AI seems to already be everywhere or on its way there. And yet, what AI is, what its origins are in the history of technical artifacts, or how exactly it does what it seems to do seems to remain elusive to most of us. In this FIG we will ponder and discuss the philosophical ideas at the heart of AI (e.g., logicism, Turing machines, Turing tests, automation, etc.) while drawing from concepts in data science (e.g., machine learning, data analysis, etc.) to better inform our understanding of what AI really is and hence, hopefully, better understand the challenges we face as we integrate this technology into our lives.
DCSI 101 Foundations of Data Science I
Science (>3) | Tuesday/Thursday | 12:00-13:20 | XXXX | 11790 | 4 Credit +Lab | Friday | 9:00-10:50 | XXXX | 11791
This course utilizes a quantitative approach to explore fundamental concepts in data science. Students will develop key skills in programming and statistical inference as they interact with real-world data sets across a variety of domains. Ethical ramifications of data collection, data-driven decision making, and privacy will be explored. This course is intended to be accessible to students without prior experience in computer programming or statistics.
PHIL 123 AI, Society, & Philosophy
Social Science (>2) | Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday | 9:00-9:50 | XXXX | 16273 | 4 Credit
Our lives today are lived through data-driven technologies such as artificial intelligence, social media, and the internet. Though they once promised freedom and equality, our data technologies have become in reality tools for things both wonderful and dreadful. The social impact of today’s data technologies is profound: democratic decay, amplified disinformation, automated discrimination, and mass-scale surveillance. What kind of society are we making as we increasingly load our lives into databases? This course offers an introduction to the most pressing social, political, and ethical problems of data technology, with a focus on the most recent technological developments, especially in artificial intelligence. Course topics may include: information polarization, echo chambers, data privacy, mass surveillance, social media selfhood, and the datafication of the self. Students will develop argumentative, research, and conceptual skills relevant to the immensely challenging task of articulating these and other problems stemming from our uses of (and our being used by) new data technologies.
Academic Team:
Ramón Alvarado (ralvarad@uoregon.edu)
FIG Seminar Instructor
Ece
FIG Assistant
Meet your FIG Instructor and Assistant