Homework will consist of weekly readings and a discussion. Students will meet in groups of three or four each week to discuss and debate points from the readings, and will turn in a brief report writing up the key takeaways from the meeting. Were there agreements and disagrements? What seemed most important to your group? We invite "intellectual hospitality" to hear and try to understand different points of view.
If you anticipate having to hand in your assignment late, please mail the staff in advance to request it and extensions are available.
The one lowest homework grade will be dropped during the semester, for computing the final grade.
The Techno-Optimist Manifesto - Marc Andreessen
Do Artifacts have Politics? - Langdon Winner
Silicon Valley Fairy Dust - Sherry Turkle
What does "Image of God" mean? - Pete Enns
"Human Dignity in the Jewish Tradition" - Yair Lorberbaum.
The Future of Artificial Intelligence and Human Dignity - Rosalind Picard
Wearables and Human Flourishing, Barczi & Picard
Example of class final project, Caitlin Morris
Your homework for week two will require you to read these papers and meet with a group from the class, outside of classtime, for ~1.5 hours to discuss these readings. We will email you group assignments for the discussion. You might find it useful to structure the conversation by asking the following conversations:
What did you like about the ideas presented in the readings?
How did the author support their points? Were the ideas useful? Interesting? How? Or if not, why not?
Did you come upon ideas that might inform your own work? Which and how?
How do the ideas move forward the notion of what it means to be human or the basis of human dignity?
What do you think it means to be human, and to have human dignity?
Remember to honor the class policy on Confidentiality.
Your written assignment is to submit (1) a confirmation that your group meeting took place; and (2) a less than one page description of your project ideas. (Two or three ideas, very rough, are fine). If you have a question or two that you'd like to continue exploring related to the intersection of the readings and science/technology advances, then feel free to add that as well.
Email your half-page report by 4pm Monday Feb 9 to betterfuture-staff (at) media.mit.edu.