AI, Structural Injustice & Political Responsibility - Jude Browne
Course Overview:
Many [tech] researchers … think that we’re plunging toward a catastrophe, with more of them daring to say it in private than in public; but they think that they can’t unilaterally stop the forward plunge, that others will go on even if they personally quit their jobs. And so they all think they might as well keep going. This is a stupid state of affairs … and the rest of humanity ought to step in at this point and help the industry solve its collective action problem (Yudkowsky, 2023).[1]
Not a day goes by without a new story on the perils of AI. We hear of increasingly clever machines that surpass human capability and comprehension, of tech billionaires competing to produce evermore powerful AI and of the increasing risks AI poses to those reliant on paid work. What should we do politically? How can we think about the governance of AI? As a way of thinking about these questions, this course will consider AI’s relationship to structural injustice and the sorts of politics structural injustice requires. We will think about the relationship of the AI Tech industry to the state, the limits of democracy and what new experimental forms of governance might offer.
Course Organisation:
The course will be taught over 7 weeks in 7 seminars. The format will be driven by student participation focused on discussion of the core readings.
Contact: HoD@polis.cam.ac.uk