CSDS 225: Current Issues in Artificial Intelligence, For Better or Worse

An exploratory seminar for technical and non-technical students on autonomous systems and automatic decision-making software. Prompt engineering will be examined, as well as systems and policies that detect, mitigate or combat AI. This course emphasizes technology and policy. Within assistive, generative, and proxy decision deployments, we consider recurring technical problems such as non-determinism, robustness, risk, bias, stale and erroneous data, small worlds and insufficiently expressive features, overfitting, polysemy, explanation, and verification. Perspectives include engineering problem-solving, law, policy, and management. National concerns of labor, defense technology, and education also kept in focus. The class is open to all majors, but students should have a strong background in engineering, science, or computer technology.