Artificial Intelligence: Understand & Create

Description

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming our society at a rapid pace. While it is true that AI has been through several historical rounds of major hyping and subsequent disappointment (so called “AI Winters”), it can hardly be overstated how modern technologies have transformed industries (such as manufacturing, logistics, stock trading and the arts, to name a few), power structures (through data collection and automatization) and people (through social media, recommender systems and dating apps).

A new wave of AI systems is on the verge of manifesting even more drastic changes. The launch of ChatGPT in late 2022 set in motion an arms-race between big tech companies that have ever bigger amounts of money to spend. They market their inventions as the most powerful technology humanity has ever invented, but more and more academics are acknowledging the realistic and potentially impactful dangers and are calling for action in AI safety and ethics.

This course recognizes the vital importance of social science perspectives on these matters. It tackles the developments in two ways:

1. Understanding. We provide an introductory overview of the field of AI for social science students. In a series of lectures, you will gain understanding of what AI is, and in what ways it is influencing society. You will learn how AI is connected to many social science topics that you may already be familiar with.
2. Creating. In addition, this course has a substantial hands-on component. In teams, you will initiate and develop an AI-assisted application, preferably one that can assist you and your fellow students in learning (academic educational) processes. You will gain experience working with generative AI tools and learn how to use them to create applications that are immediately useful. Assessment will be done through this practical component.

No pre-existing technical skills are required to follow the course. Experience with programming may come in handy, but is not essential.

Prior requirements

• An interest in AI

• A drive to contribute to understanding of AI and society

• A desire to be a change-agent in the area of Human-AI interaction.

Course objectives

Through completion of this course, students will:

• learn about what Artificial Intelligence is and in what major ways it is influencing society

• learn to see the vital importance of the social sciences to research in AI

• learn to work with generative AI to create useful applications.

Mode of instruction

This course is worth 4 ECTS, which is equal to a total workload of 112 hours:

• Seminars: 5 seminars of 2 hours each (= 10hrs)

• Seminar preparation: 4 hrs of reading for each seminar (= 20hrs)

• Labs: 4 practical labs and a presentation session of 2 hours each (= 10hrs)

• Project: work on project/presentation/report outside of labs (= 72 hrs)
  Note: These hours will consist of self-study, application development, application testing, presentation preparation and writing your report. The workload will presumably be higher towards the end of the course.

Attendance and active participation in all these components is mandatory to pass the course.

Assessment methods

To complete the course, students are expected to:

• actively participate (this includes attendance in seminars and labs)

• develop (in groups) an AI-assisted application

• present their application

• write a report on their application.

At the end of the course, you will be assessed with an overall P/F mark.

Literature

TBD

Language

Teaching will be in English. It is possible to do the final assignment in Dutch.

Skills

This course will improve the following Leiden University Transferable Skills:

• Project-based working

• Digital skills

• Working together

• Societal awareness

• Independent learning

• Presenting

• Reflecting

In addition, you will improve the following skills:

• Critical thinking

• Academic reading

• Creative problem solving

Timetable

Admission requirements

This is an Honours Module meant for second and if places available third year students of the Honours College FSW program, Science, Society and Self track. You have to participate in at least one Honours Module in your second year.

Registration

You can register for the Honours Modules via MyStudyMap until five days before the start of the course.

Contact information

If you have any questions, please contact the course coordinators:
Pieter Pierrot p.j.pierrot@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
or Marc Cleiren, cleiren@fsw.leidenuniv.nl