Artificial Agency and Society

Harvard FAS

Not long ago, highly capable AI agents were the stuff of science fiction. Today, most of us interact with them many times a day (often without even noticing it!). Scholars from diverse fields are now racing to determine what impact this rapid shift is likely to have both on our society and on humanity more generally. This course will first examine how artificial agents are currently designed and then discuss whether we should attribute to them typical human capacities like believing,…