Adding AI to another class
Last week I wrote about infusing generative AI into one of my classes. For that seminar about the future of higher education I deliberately wrote AI exercises into nearly every class session.
Today I’ll share a different approach, in the spirit of experimentation and openness. This time it’s my technology and innovation seminar and I’m trying out another AI integration path.
Since the class is about technology and meets in person in a fine, well supplied classroom, I’m going to assume we have access to generative AI tools throughout our time together. Instead of planning out exercises from the semester’s start, I want to have textbots and imagebots ready to hand to use as the combination of syllabus and student discussion suggests. I and other instructors already do this with other digital services, reaching out to web pages or YouTube for clips on the spur of the moment, in order to illustrate a point which came up organically.
I’ve already done this in classes. For example, after reading about college administration, one student wondered what the whole apparatus meant for understanding the purpose of higher education. Their classmates struggled with the question, so I put ChatGPT on the shared screen to see what it thought. This wasn’t to treat the OpenAI tool as an oracle, but instead - as I explained to the class - to get a sense of the official narrative. The consensus view is often what mainstream chatbots offer, and this one offered it very well:
The purpose of higher education can vary for different people, but generally, it serves several key functions:
Knowledge Acquisition: Higher education provides an opportunity to deepen your knowledge in a particular field or subject. This is a chance to become an expert in a specific area, which can lead to specialized job opportunities and the ability to contribute to advancements in that field.
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving: Higher education often involves dealing with complex concepts and issues. This helps to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are valuable in any professional setting.
Research and Innovation: Universities and colleges are often at the forefront of research and innovation. Being a part of this environment can provide the opportunity to contribute to important discoveries and developments.
Career Advancement: Having a higher education degree can open up more job opportunities and lead to higher earning potential. It can also be a requirement for certain professional fields or for advancing to higher levels within a profession.
Personal Development: Beyond just the academic and professional benefits, higher education can also contribute to personal growth. It is an opportunity to meet people from diverse backgrounds, develop a broader perspective on the world, and build self-confidence and independence.
Social Mobility: Higher education can provide a pathway to social mobility. It can give individuals the tools and opportunities to improve their socio-economic status.
Civic Engagement: Higher education often fosters a sense of civic responsibility and the skills necessary to contribute to society in meaningful ways.
It's worth noting that the value of higher education can vary widely based on the individual and the specific circumstances. For example, some people may find that they can achieve their career and personal goals without a higher education degree, while for others it may be essential. Additionally, the cost of higher education and the potential return on investment should also be considered.
There is a brace of the usual reasons - but the ones usual to me and other people thinking about higher education professionally, and not all evident to students newly studying the topic professionally. Note the way ChatGPT caveats by pointing to multiplicity and variation. This made for fine discussion fodder., including criticizing the bot’s choices.
Looking ahead to this class, I can anticipate a range of improvised AI use cases. For example, in my experience students often struggle with Walter Benjamin’s epochal essay on mechanical reproduction, especially if they lack a first generation Frankfurt School background. I give them some of that, of course, but also expect I might see what an LLM - talk about mechanical reproduction! - would say about their queries. What does it mean for a work of art to have a politics? How can an ideology have an aesthetics? They can answer these questions through other technological means - Google, in particular - but I suspect chatbots will offer an interesting and meta- view.
Considering bias as we read Ruha Benjamin and Ursula LeGuin, I think I’d like to ask students to ask different image bots to produce visuals to hunt for race and other prejudices. (Last night I asked a video generator to give me an avatar for an academic, and four older white males appeared.)
Thinking about the diffusion of innovations is a major theme for this class, so perhaps I’ll show students how to prompt textbots into simulating an innovation’s uptake over time. They could do this historically, perhaps going for counterfactuals, or prospectively, imagining a new idea and seeing how it might play out.
We have a week on AI which I’ve left open for now, in part because I want to see what the students are thinking, and also because the field is moving so quickly. I’d like the students to help shape that week. It might be interesting for all of us to see what Bard recommends.
And so much depends on what students are interested in! Imagine, for example, that a theme of resistance to technology surfaces. That connects with some of our readings (Heidegger), but we might want to go further. Students can use AI to generate ideas, but also to pick on generative AI as something to resist, and then research that.
To sum up: in this class AI stands ready for emergent, even improv uses. We’ll see how it plays out.
Here’s the syllabus:
Tuesday, August 29, 2023 - introductions
Readings:
[Tuesday, September 5, 2023 - no class due to Labor Day schedule]
Tuesday, September 12, 2023 - Histories of technology, I
Reading: Steven Johnson, How We Got To Now part 1: to p. 124
Tuesday, September 19, 2023 - Histories of technology, II
Reading: How We Got To Now part 2: to the end.
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Student tech presentations:
Tuesday, September 26, 2023 - Imagining innovation
Readings:
Bush, “As We May Think” (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/)
Schroeder, “Noon in the Antilibrary” (https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611829/noon-in-the-antilibrary/)
Atul Gawande, "Slow Ideas" https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/07/29/slow-ideas
Forster, “The Machine Stops” (https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/Machine_stops.pdf) (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops)
Student tech presentations:
Tuesday, October 3, 2023 - How innovations spread, I
Readings: Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition: 1-52; 72-3; 87-218 (chapter 1; chapter 2 through the Miracle Rice story, the STOP AIDS story, and from "Opinion Leaders" on; chapters 3-5)
Referenced: Moore, Crossing the Chasm
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Student tech presentations
Friday, October 6 - analysis of one innovation due
Tuesday, October 10, 2023 - - How innovations spread, II
Reading: Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 5th Edition: chapters 7-11
Christensen, Raynor, McDonald, “What Is Disruptive Innovation?” https://hbr.org/2015/12/what-is-disruptive-innovation
Student tech presentations
Tuesday, October 17, 2023 - How to nurture innovation
Readings:
Jon Gernter, The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation (part one, chapters 1-11)
Rosen, "Prologue and Changes in the Atmosphere" Prologue and Changes in the Atmosphere - Rosen v2-1.pdf
Student tech presentations
Tuesday, October 24, 2023- Justice and innovation, 1
Readings:
Ruha Benjamin, Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, 1-96.
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (one copy)
Student tech presentations
Tuesday, October 31, 2023 - Justice and innovation, 2
Reading:
Benjamin, Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code, 97-end.
Lepore, “The Disruption Machine” https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/06/23/the-disruption-machine
Student tech presentations
Tuesday, November 7, 2023 - Beyond America and Europe
Reading: Digital Middle East, selections:
Zayani, "Mapping the Digital Middle East: Trends and Disjunctions", 1-32
Any four (4) chapters of your choosing, based on your interests - chapter exploration Google Doc
Student tech presentations
Friday, November 10 - annotated bibliography due
Tuesday, November 14, 2023 - Critiquing technology
Ursula LeGuin, "The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction"
Judy Wajcman, "Feminist Theories of Technology" Judy Wajcman Feminist theories of technology .pdf
Martin Heidegger, "The Question Concerning Technology" Heidegger - The Question Concerning Technology.pdf
Student tech presentations
Tuesday, November 21, 2023 - TOPIC TBA
-class virtual
Tuesday, November 28, 2023 - AI
Readings and exercises TK
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Student project presentations
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