AI: The End of Humanity or the Beginning of a Better Future? (In-person at TBE)
Class | This program is completed
What’s AI (Artificial Intelligence) and what will it mean for us humans? Accurate disease diagnostics in a nanosecond, safe autonomous vehicles, robot crop harvesters, super-smart administrative assistants, personal robot housemaids, etc. Or: Deep fake videos disrupting election campaigns; robots taking over the battlefield or the factory; bots with minds that their creators don’t understand or control?
As AI permeates our lives, we had better understand its impacts on individuals, communities, and global society. We will focus on the ethical, social, legal, business, and economic implications of AI technologies. We will navigate beyond alarming headlines to gain a nuanced view of the current and future uses, development, and regulation of AI systems.
Format: A mix of discussion and presentations, plus sharing our responses to applications (apps) powered by AI. Two types of presentations:
1) Overviews of areas that will be transformed by AI, such as medicine, military, education, law enforcement, personal privacy
2) Intros and how-to’s for currently available AI-powered apps such as ChatGPT, Bing, Bard, Dall-E, Duolingo. We will use and discuss the featured apps. This is a hybrid class.
Resources/Expenses: There are no anticipated resources or expenses.
(Course description co-authored and edited by ChatGPT.)
Robert Kemp
Bob Kemp, a retired corporate attorney, has tracked recent AI developments. He co-coordinated Huckleberry Finn, Frankenstein, and other popular LLC courses.
Linda Shamoon
Linda Shamoon taught courses on writing in electrotonic environments at URI. She has co-coordinated over twenty courses, including numerous iterations of the popular Concerts and Conversations course, and currently heads the LLC Technology Committee.
Karen Stein
Karen Stein is a retired URI professor. She taught American literature and Women’s Studies. Karen serves as a docent at the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg, Florida. She has co-coordinated many popular LLC poetry classes.