PRTO 4310 Rage Against the Machine? Disruption and Opportunity in the Age of AI

This course aims to address the mounting concerns over the use of AI in the contemporary workplace as well as increasing worries about job opportunities and labor replacement. In order to contextualize the discussion of AI, the first part of the course will look back at the economic and ethical concerns and patterns surrounding technological progress in the first and second industrial revolutions examining trends that emerged with the introduction of technologies like the power loom, the steam engine, and the electric motor. We will then move on to a discussion of the digital/computer revolution of the 1980s in order to more fully understand the situation out of which AI technology is emerging. Finally, we will turn to a more contemporary discussion surrounding AI itself and the many political, economic, and ethical challenges it is raising for the modern workforce. Throughout, we will discuss the nature of personhood and work as an essential component of the human condition. We will examine ways in which people have adopted technologies in the endeavor to live the good life and think about how we might use AI in the pursuit of living well.