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Courses - Fall 2024
PHIL
Philosophy Department Site
Open Seats as of
12/21/2024 at 08:30 AM
PHIL211
Credits: 3
Grad Meth: Reg, P-F, Aud
GenEd: DSSP
Credit only granted for: PHIL209D or PHIL211.
Formerly: PHIL209D.
An introduction to a major subfield of contemporary Philosophy, namely applied ethics, and the experience of using some major tools in the practice of philosophy more generally, namely, the construction and formal evaluation of arguments, conceptual analysis, the use of thought experiments, and clear, direct and persuasive writing. Learning how to execute the latter will involve an intense iterative process. The substantive focus of the course will be the ethical evaluation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in some of its current and potentially future incarnations. We'll examine algorithmic opacity, algorithmic bias and decision-making, autonomous weapons systems, human-robot interaction, and artificial moral agents, in order to uncover what, if any, ethical issues they give rise to.
Is Alexa spying on you? How will autonomous vehicles make decisions on the road? Has a relative of yours been denied a loan on account of their zip code? Would you have sex with a robot? Will lethal autonomous weapons make the world safer or more dangerous? Could a robot ever have rights? Does it matter if we can't understand how AI does what it does? What is the future of (human) work? What is a moral machine? Can and should we build one? These are among the questions we will tackle in this up-to-date course on some of the ethical problems and puzzles that artificial intelligence (AI) gives rise to. We will be interested in the problems and puzzles themselves and also in whether they can be ameliorated or solved.