Overview
A historically-informed and transdisciplinary approach to designing artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, and the systems in which they exist to be equitable and just.
Throughout history, innovations in science and technology, while bold and visionary, have historically resulted in catastrophic consequences for Indigenous and Black communities, immigrants and the natural world. Today's emerging technologies, which span everything from generative AI to synthetic media, have incredible capabilities, and at the same time are plagued with algorithmic bias and lack accountability. What can we learn from our precarious past that we are not learning today, but need to? This class welcomes the curious and the creative, from a wide range of fields including design, computer science, art, history, political science, ethics, feminist and gender studies, African and African-American studies, and professionals of diverse backgrounds. Through a variety of hands-on speculative design projects and group discourse, students will learn how to prototype with emerging technologies across physical and digital mediums (with a focus on artificial intelligence), and evaluate their implications on diverse communities, the natural world, and our past and future selves.