Admission requirements
Intended for all Bachelor students registered for the minor Responsible Innovation.
Description
How is AI shaping our understanding of ourselves and our societies? AI can be seen as a technology of extraction: from the energy and minerals needed to build and sustain its infrastructure, to the labor behind “automated” services, to the data AI collects from us. In the book “The Atlas of AI” Kate Crawford offers us a political and a material perspective on what it takes to make artificial intelligence and where it goes wrong. While technical systems present a veneer of objectivity, they are always systems of power.
In this course, we will critically read the book “The Atlas of AI” and review it in the form of group debate sessions. This serves as an exercise in critically investigating long-term broad societal impacts of technological advances.
Course objectives
At the end of this course the participants will:
Be able to evaluate frameworks for societal impacts of digital technologies;
Be able to analyze the contents of the book;
Be able to apply the framework presented in the book to their own personal experiences, and connect to their disciplinary perspectives.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Lectures
Seminars
Assessment method
Assessment
Written assignment: blog/short essay (1000 words) on reflections on power and politics of AI
Group presentations
Participation: contribution to subgroup meetings
Attendance in this course is mandatory. In case of no-show, the tutor should be informed about your absence prior to the actual seminar session. For each absence, students have to do an assignment.
Weighing
Written assignment (50%)
Group presentations (40%)
Participation (10%)
The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average. To pass the course, the weighted average of the partial grades must be 5.5 or higher.
Resit
If the end grade is insufficient, it is possible to take a resit examination. This resit examination takes place in one exam and covers all the material of the course. The faculty rules relating to participation in resit examinations can be found in article 4.1 of the faculty Course and Examination Regulations (OER).
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
- Kate Crawford, “Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence” (2021).
Supplementary readings will be announced through Brightspace.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory (only applies to Leiden students).
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Arsenaal
For practical questions, contact the education coordinator Jarno Revelman de Vries Mail: lde-minors@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Remarks
Not applicable.