Understanding AI: Challenges, Changes for How We Communicate

Undergraduate / Graduate

Generative AI, large language models (LLMs) -- these buzzwords have been popping up in newsrooms, classrooms, and dinner tables. Questions about safety, environmental impacts, economic impacts and educational effects make people wonder how AI works, how it might change and augment the way we communicate and write, and what we should do about it. This class will give students the opportunity to: understand how AI powered applications for writing such as Gmail's Smart Compose feature and Grammarly's personalized revision suggestions work, get hands-on-experiences working with various AI-powered writing tools, speak with researchers and industry professionals to understand the design, impact, and motivation of these AI-based tools, consider historical events such as the development of the printing press and the internet to contextualize the effects of technology on human communication, and create a final project that analyzes and reflects on how technologies change the way that we communicate and write. Through these experiences, students will better understand the present AI landscape, with a focus on LLMs and their impacts on communication and writing, and form their own perspectives on the opportunities and risks of AI.