Artificial Intelligence Institutions

Pre-requisites: Microeconomics. Students would benefit from previous coding experience, but software development is not a strict requirement. Our institutions were developed in a context with different technologies: where travel and communication were slow and expensive, and thinking had to be done by humans. New technologies afford—and may require—different ways of organizing society. We will consider historical episodes of technological change and our current era, following how shifts in technology can shift the economy and society. We will first use this course itself as a laboratory to explore the impacts of AI on education. We will then consider how AI may reshape other sectors, including governance, transportation, and defense; and the cross-cutting questions it raises about values, economic wellbeing, and purpose.