Technological Innovations (341-0-20)
Topic
Cultural History of Artificial Intelligence: Robot
Instructors
Nathaniel Rossi
Meeting Info
Helmerich Auditorium: Mon, Wed 3:00PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
With the explosive growth of generative AI, there has been a flurry of debates over what the role artificial intelligence should be in our contemporary society. Silicon Valley and its tech entrepreneurs often frame AI as a utopic solution to the world's social ills. Hollywood and independent creatives, on the other hand, have often framed AI in a more critical light - imagining what the impact of AI might be in relation to labor, the environment, and our daily socio-cultural relations. As such, this course seeks to understand how film and media have attempted to create a critical consciousness around artificial intelligence. From Charlie Chaplin's commentary on automated labor in Modern Times (1936) to Stanley Kubrick's meditation on technological development and humanity in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to Spike Jonze's ruminations on loneliness, love, and chatbots in Her (2013), film and media makers have long sought to understand AI and its societal implications. Through readings that address the historical development of AI and weekly film screenings, this course will help students unpack the meaning of what is "natural" and what is "artificial," as well as what is "intelligence." Yet, none of these considerations are just about machines, they are questions about humanity too - about our knowledges, hopes, fears and desires. By looking across twentieth and twenty-first century film, media and theory, students will better understand how we have both dreamed of and recoiled from the possibility of machines automating our very human ways of thinking and making.
Learning Objectives
By the end of the course, students should be able to identify and analyze major periods in the development of artificial intelligence from the early 20th century through the present moment. They should be able to evaluate how film, media makers, and scholarly voices have reacted to technological breakthroughs in AI, as well as how film and media texts reflect anxieties towards technological innovation and uncertain futures. Finally, they will work on an analytical paper/project pertaining to how a specific film/filmmaker or other media text has sought to create a critical consciousness around the implications of AI in relation to a facet of society of their choosing.
Class Materials (Required)
R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (Penguin Classics) by Karel Capek (approx $12 on Amazon);
Dream Machine: A Portrait of Artificial Intelligence (MIT Press) by Appupen and Laurent Daudet (approx $20 on Amazon)
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Reserved for Radio/TV/Film Major and Minor Students until the end of preregistration, after which time enrollment will be open to everyone who has taken the prerequisites.