Discussions

The class includes weekly class-wide discussion forums (primarily on Moodle, some discussion in person). Most discussions will be case studies on specific technologies.

Instructions

Each week we’ll choose a different technology (or sometimes another type of question). See the “Contents” below for the list; specific links will be given each week.

• Choose an applicable question.
  • Usually you’ll choose one the general questions that we’ll be asking about all technologies (see below).
  • Sometimes you might want to respond more directly to one of the provocative questions or issues given in the specific prompt.
• Write a short post (100-200 words) with your answer. Cite sources to support your views. The topic page will often give additional references that you may refer to.
  • Title your post with a summary of your answer.
  • Post it in the discussion forum for the corresponding week.
  • Longer, more substantial posts are welcome; consider contributing these to the class blog.
• Respond to one other student’s post.

Questions about Technologies

We’ll focus our discussion on these questions:

1. How does it work?
   • How does it use technologies that we’ve studied in class?
   • How does it go beyond what we’ve studied?
2. What impact does it have?
   • What people and relationships are affected by it?
   • What resources does it need? What resources does it produce?
   • What value does it produce for an organization that uses it?
   • Besides its primary use, what are other consequences of its deployment? (Consider both inside and outside an organization.)
3. How can we constructively assess it from a Reformed Christian perspective and other perspectives?
   • What ways of looking at or thinking about people does it emphasize? De-emphasize?
   • What are its main limitations?
   • How might God redeem it in the New Creation?
   • How should we relate to it now—as individuals and as neighbors?

These are far from the only useful questions. Other questions to ask might be:

• Neil Postman’s Five Things We Need to Know about Technological Change
• L.M. Sacasas expanded them to 41 questions concerning technology

You might also pose a question of your own!

Weekly Rhythm

• Friday beginning of class: one or two students give a 5-10 minute introductory presentation on the topic
• Asynchronous discussion (on Moodle) runs until the following Wednesday
• Wednesday class: brief summary of discussion: what did you learn from your peers?

Presentations

Students sign up for a topic on a sign-up sheet (see Moodle for link). A list of suggested topics is provided but you may choose your own.

If you sign up for a presentation

Prepare a brief summary of your topic to present to the class. Suggestions for the presentation:

• Keep it short: 5-10 minutes.
  • Think of it more as an advertisement for why your topic is interesting or important.
  • Don’t try to “get through” your outline; people can read that on their own.
• Connect to people’s personal experience with the technology. e.g., “do you unlock your phone with your face?”
• Consider using two short stories: one about a “good” use of your technology, one about a “bad” use.

You’ll also give an outline about the topic, as a reference for the discussion.

Topic Templates

The presenter will also prepare an outline about the topic, like those listed in the list below. Ideally you can contribute this to the class GitHub repository (the source code for the website), so that whoever wants to present on this next year (or beyond) could start with that writeup and update it.

Documents on this website are written in Markdown with a header for metadata. Here’s a template you can start with:

---
title: "Your Topic"
author: "Your name"
---

## Quote

> optional quote or Scripture reference
>
> source

## Background

### What is it

A very brief description of what it is.

### Uses

- what are various groups using it for?
- give a few examples, both "good" and "bad"

### Who

- A list of some actors in the field
- This could be companies using it, researchers studying it, ...

### Potential concerns

- bullet point summary of potential concerns
- each bullet can give a brief description of that concern

### News

- a few links
- to some recent news articles
- on the topic

## Provocations

- a provocative question
- another provocative question

## Further reading

- some other resources

How to Contribute the Outline

1. Go to the discussions section of the course repo.
2. Click “Add file”. Use a simple name, like face_reco.md or vehicles.md.
3. Write a commit message like “Add discussion overview for facial recognition” and Commit it.
4. Create a Pull Request (PR) to contribute the file to the repo.

You may also just send the file directly to the instructor. But if you do the above, you’ll get credit on GitHub as a contributor to the course repo.

Summary Report

At the end of the course, you’ll write a short essay for a nontechnical audience about the broader issues raised by an AI topic of your choice. You may choose a topic of one of the discussion forums or listed on the topic sign-up sheet; if you would like to write about a topic other than those, please ask the instructor for approval first.

Your essay should address all of the applicable questions in the “Questions about Technologies” section above.

You are strongly encouraged to make connections to the topic of your course project, where possible.

Aim for a length between 600 and 1000 words, but more importantly, aim to be clear while being concise.

You are encouraged to discuss these issues with other students, such as those in your project team; however, the writing should be your own.

Contents

• AI and the Environment
• AI in Healthcare
• Autonomous Vehicles
• Emotional Artificial Intelligence
• Facial Recognition