AI matters

Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents great opportunity, but also significant disruption for modern societies and cultures. This free online short course investigates the historical, ethical and social issues surrounding this technology. It is aimed at people interested in understanding where this technology has come from, the kinds of opportunities it brings to modern and future societies, but also the risks it presents, and what steps we might take to avoid such risks.This course has been developed from LG003 - An introduction to artificial intelligences. The Open University has launched a dedicated learning centre called The Open Centre for Languages and Cultures. OpenLearn is supporting this project and is providing extracted units of all courses on The Open Centre in our dedicated Language and cultures hub.

• Introduction
• Introduction
• Open Centre for Languages and Cultures
• Acknowledgements
• Week1Week 1: Surrounded by AI
• Introduction
• 1 Looking backwards
• 1.1 Robotic servants
• 1.2 Autonomous AI?
• 1.3 Background: Autonomous and Intelligent Systems
• 1.4 Background: Russell and Norvig’s four kinds of AI
• 2 Looking around us
• 2.1 Risks and benefits
• 3 Looking forwards
• 4 This week’s quiz
• Summary of Week 1
• References
• Acknowledgements
• Week2Week 2: Assuming AI is possible, what happens next?
• Introduction
• 1 If AI is possible, how should we prepare for it?
• 2 Diversity, fairness, and equitability in AI
• 2.1 The role of technology companies
• 2.2 The impact of AI technology on society
• 3 The sustainability of AI
• 3.1 AI and sustainability
• 4 Using AI for social good
• 5 This week’s quiz
• Summary
• Next steps
• Glossary
• References
• Acknowledgements