Technology Studies (Half-Term):Artificial Intelligence, Computation and Society

Artificial intelligence - a cluster of technologies including but not limited to large language models - has inspired hope, hype, horror and greed as corporations rush to grab profits, policymakers grapple with regulation, researchers push boundaries and regular people wonder what it all means. We will examine the interaction between this cluster of technologies and society through a sociological and historical lens and aim to extend the conceptual and empirical lessons from earlier eras of industrial and scientific upheaval which, not at all coincidentally, sparked the founding of sociology.