Week 4: Hoverboards
Paper Ideas
The idea for your first paper is due Sunday, 30 September. From the syllabus, the first paper can “focus on one aspect of how artificial intelligence has already impacted society, describing the impact of technological advances on a social, political, economic, or psychological aspect of human existence.” It is not required that your paper idea is on this topic though — anything that is relevant to the seminar theme (broadly interpreted), interesting, and with a scope suitable for a 4-5 week effort is reasonable.
You should post your paper idea on the class
subreddit. Submit a new text
post (or a link post that links to a PDF) that has a title Paper: your title and contains:
- One sentence: what is your paper about
- 1-2 paragraphs that motivate your topic
- A short list of things you plan to do (e.g., readings) to develop your idea
The best ideas for will make an argument for a non-obvious and controversial claim and include data to support that argument.
Elevator Pitches. In class next week, you’ll give an elevator pitch for your idea to the class for feedback. This should be about 90 seconds long — enough to give a clear idea of your idea and why it is worth doing, but getting to the point concisely.
Assignment
Before the next class (Monday, 1 October), you should read:
-
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Chapters 18, 19 and Afterword.
-
Tim Urban (“Wait but why”), The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence (Part 2). (Posted in 2015)
Sapiens Response. Now that you’ve finished Sapiens, post a comment that mentions the most surprising or interesting thing you learned from reading it and explains why. [Discussion Link]
Hallpike Response. Select one of Hallpike’s criticisms of Sapiens (this could be a specific quote from his review, or a paraphrase of a main point), and make a case opposing it. Alternatively, if you find all of Hallpike’s criticisms valid and convincing, respond to one of the cases posted with a counter-argument. [Discussion Link]
(There’s no response question for the Superintelligence reading, but feel free to post any thoughts you want on this. I’m not sure if we’ll get to discussing this next meeting, but it, and readings from Bostrom’s book, will be the main focus of the next few weeks.)
Paper Ideas
The idea for your first paper is due Sunday, 30 September. From the syllabus, the first paper can “focus on one aspect of how artificial intelligence has already impacted society, describing the impact of technological advances on a social, political, economic, or psychological aspect of human existence.” It is not required that your paper idea is on this topic though — anything that is relevant to the seminar theme (broadly interpreted), interesting, and with a scope suitable for a 4-5 week effort is reasonable.
You should post your paper idea on the class
subreddit. Submit a new text
post (or a link post that links to a PDF) that has a title Paper: your title and contains:
- One sentence: what is your paper about
- 1-2 paragraphs that motivate your topic
- A short list of things you plan to do (e.g., readings) to develop your idea
The best ideas for will make an argument for a non-obvious and controversial claim and include data to support that argument.
Elevator Pitches. In class next week, you’ll give an elevator pitch for your idea to the class for feedback. This should be about 90 seconds long — enough to give a clear idea of your idea and why it is worth doing, but getting to the point concisely.
Assignment
Before the next class (Monday, 1 October), you should read:
-
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Chapters 18, 19 and Afterword.
-
Tim Urban (“Wait but why”), The AI Revolution: The Road to Superintelligence (Part 2). (Posted in 2015)
Sapiens Response. Now that you’ve finished Sapiens, post a comment that mentions the most surprising or interesting thing you learned from reading it and explains why. [Discussion Link]
Hallpike Response. Select one of Hallpike’s criticisms of Sapiens (this could be a specific quote from his review, or a paraphrase of a main point), and make a case opposing it. Alternatively, if you find all of Hallpike’s criticisms valid and convincing, respond to one of the cases posted with a counter-argument. [Discussion Link]
(There’s no response question for the Superintelligence reading, but feel free to post any thoughts you want on this. I’m not sure if we’ll get to discussing this next meeting, but it, and readings from Bostrom’s book, will be the main focus of the next few weeks.)
Week 4: Hoverboards Week 4: Hoverboards