Advanced study in sociology, with specific topics to be announced at the beginning of each semester.

AI is fundamentally a social technology. It is designed by teams of developers who are employed by corporations, governments, academic institutions, or non-profit organizations. Using massive amounts of (mostly) human generated and annotated data, the technology learns from what it is fed. AI promises tremendous strides for human societies, for instance, improving the output of human workers and speeding the pace of scientific research and development. However, left unexamined, it also reflects and automates the biases that come both from its designers and the data it was trained on. It consumes tremendous amounts of natural resources and leads us to important questions about what sort of energy expenditures we can justify. Without careful consideration of how this technology is designed and integrated into the systems we use, it can reproduce and amplify existing social inequalities– even as it holds immense promise to solve some of our most intractable social problems. This class brings students into dialogue with current debates in sociology, moral philosophy, and political science and asks what decisions they would make as leaders in this space in order to build the sort of society they wish to see. The course will be a part of the Berkeley Discovery Initiative program and will involve hands-on research projects with the possibility of publication for students.

During Phase 1, students are unable to directly enroll or wait-list into the Sociology 190 Capstone Seminars via Cal Central. Instead, students must fill out a SOC 190 Placement Request Form - https://berkeley.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_eyr4UgmPlbelV7U (Available October 6 - December 6, 2024)

Repeat Rules

Requirements class fulfills