LIN 270 - Artificial Intelligence, Language, and Ethics

This course examines, in non-technical terms, basic principles of core technologies (neural networks and Large Language Models) behind new artificial intelligence-based language tools like ChatGPT. It focuses on what ways they do and do not emulate human-like language knowledge and use, as understood by current linguistics research; which cognitive tendencies drive us to (mis-)perceive these tools as reflecting human-type minds; and key ethical problems in their development and deployment (bias in training datasets emerging in resultant AI; access inequity; and privacy, intellectual property, and Indigenous data sovereignty concerns in data scraping to populate these datasets).

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Co-requisite(s):
Credits: 3

Meets the Following Core Requirement: Ethical Inquiry, Social Responsibility, and Citizenship
Course Typically Offered: Fall, Odd Years
Course Type: Lecture