Ancient Wisdom, Modern Tech

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course provides you the opportunity to consider the relevance of ancient wisdom traditions for conducting an ethical analysis of modern technologies. The traditions on which you will focus are Christian teachings about the Ten Commandments (a digest of the moral law of the Hebrew Bible) and natural law (moral knowledge that is accessible to all people). You will apply the normative values of these traditions to evaluating technologies like generative artificial intelligence, content moderation, anthropogenic climate change, resource-allocation algorithms, autonomous weapons, digital companions, population health care, synthetic media, and social media. As you will discover, this interdisciplinary engagement has already begun because technologists are utilizing numerous concepts that are shared by Christian theology. You will critically evaluate this discourse and seek to improve it by drawing from the riches of the wisdom traditions of Christianity.