The recent rise of AI, thirty-something years after the advent of the Internet, heralds the beginning of another technical revolution. What is AI? Where has it come from? Where is it going? This course, aimed at a non-technical audience, attempts to answer these questions by taking a historical and cultural journey through the development of AI from the 1950s to the present day. Among other things, the tutor will draw on vignettes drawn from history, literature and philosophy to discuss: a) how and why recent AI tools work so well, b) their strengths and weaknesses, and, c) the fascinating question of whether they can reason.

DELIVERY MODE

• Face-to-Face

SUGGESTED READING

• Library of Babel, Jorge Luis Borges
• The Kekule Problem, Cormac McCarthy
• What is ChatGPT and Why Does it Work, Stephen Wolfram

COURSE OUTLINE

• What is AI?
• Where has it come from; where is it going?
• Why does it work?
• Why I should care?

LEARNING OUTCOMES

By the end of this course, students should be able to:

1. Explain what is AI and where has it come from
2. Explore how it works
3. Know what can AI do
4. Explain what modern AI tools can reason