AI and Civil Society: Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Agents

Harvard HKS

How does artificial intelligence reshape the conditions under which civic actors build, sustain, and govern themselves? Artificial intelligence is often framed as a technological or economic transformation. This course approaches it instead as a political and institutional shift with profound implications for civil society. As algorithmic systems increasingly structure attention, information flows, organizational strategy, resource allocation, and policy priorities, they alter the terrain on…