This 2-unit interdisciplinary research seminar will be held in conjunction with an international symposium convened by the NYU Center for AI and Culture, which will bring leading scholars, curators, science fiction writers, and heads of major platform research groups to campus. The seminar will host a deeper interdisciplinary conversation on the issues that underpin their work. Seminar participants will meet each of the conference speakers. We will emphasize the overlapping and intersecting histories of “AI” in cognitive science, philosophy, interactive and computer arts, and science fiction literature and film. The frequent back-and-forth between AI in fiction and in fact is the basis of how we will, together, attempt to map the divergent futures of AI. It is said that artificial intelligence will be as important to the twenty-first century as oil was to the twentieth. AI is promoted by China, Europe, Russia and the USA as central to their innovation strategies and, as such, may portend a new computational arms race. There is consensus that geopolitical peace and conflict may be determined by how great nations use AI for good or ill. To define AI is is to conceive what is and is not “intelligence” and what is and is not “artificial.” Because no two cultures understand these basic terms in the same way, they will not understand AI in the same way. As such, any global discussion about the future of AI must be cross-cultural. The more we understand what each culture “means” by AI the more fruitful the collaborative design of AI can be. The seminar is suggested for students of Interactive Media Arts, Computer Science, Political Science, Philosophy, and anyone interested in algorithmic art, automation, machine vision, computational economics, and geopolitics. We will read and discuss 10 key texts and students will prepare an original project, paper or hybrid. Prereq: WAI Fulfillment: IMA/IMB elective.
Interactive Media Arts (Undergraduate)
2 credits – 8 Weeks
Sections (Spring 2021)
INTM-SHU 297T-000 (20382)03/22/2021 – 05/14/2021 Fri9:00 AM – 12:00 AM (Morning)at ShanghaiInstructed by Bratton, Benjamin Hugh