PHIL 392H3: Honors Colloquium on AI, Knowledge, and Democracy (Fall 2025)
Prof. Eric Funkhouser
MWF 11:50 - 12:40; KIMP 206A
Topic: AI & LLM Fundamentals
August 18
Introductions; Philosophy and AI
Some good advice for beginners
August 20
Suleyman, The Coming Wave, Prologue - Chapter 3
Optional background on where we are today (video)
August 22
Suleyman, The Coming Wave, Chapter 4
August 25
Gonçalves, "Turing's Test, a Beautiful Thought Experiment" Notes
August 27
Descartes, Discourse on Method, Part V excerpt Notes
August 29
Jones & Bergen, "Large Language Models Pass the Turing Test" Notes
Optional: Dennett on "counterfeit people"
September 1
No Class -- Labor Day
September 3
Bender et al., "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots" Notes
First In-Class Reflection
September 5
Carabantes, "Black-Box Artificial Intelligence" Notes
September 8
Ji et al., "AI Alignment: A Comprehensive Survey, " Part 1 Notes
September 10
"Alignment Faking in Large Language Models"
September 12
Cont'd
Topic: Hallucination, Deception, Personalization, & Sycophancy
September 15
Schneider, "Chatbot Epistemology" Notes
September 17
Jones & Bergen, "Lies, Damned Lies, and Distributional Language Statistics" Notes
Second In-Class Reflection
September 19
Cont'd
September 22
Park et al., "AI Deception: A Survey of Examples, Risks, and Potential Solutions" Notes
September 24
Cont'd
September 26
Schoenegger et al., "Large Language Models are More Persuasive than Incentivized Human Persuaders" Notes
First Small Project Due
September 29
Cont'd
October 1
Sharma et al., "Towards Understanding Sycophancy in Language Models" (pp. 1-9) Notes
October 3
Suleyman, The Coming Wave, Chapters 7-8
Midterm Study Guide
October 6
Cont'd/Review
October 8
Midterm Day 1
October 10
Midterm Day 2
Topic: Ideals of Democratic Deliberation
October 13
No Class -- Fall Break
October 15
Mill, On Liberty (Chapter 2) Notes
October 17
Cont'd
October 20
Khan et al., "Debating with More Persuasive LLMs Leads to More Truthful Answers" Notes
October 22
Hackenburg et al., "The Levers of Political Persuasion with Conversational AI" Notes
October 24
Cont'd
Third In-Class Reflection
October 27
Suleyman, The Coming Wave, Chapters 9-10
October 29
Suleyman, The Coming Wave, Chapters 11-12
October 31
Cont'd
Second Small Project Due
Topic: Political Deliberation & Propaganda
November 3
Tessler et al, "AI Can Help Humans Find Common Ground in Democratic Deliberation" Notes
November 5
Potter et al, "Hidden Persuaders" Notes
November 7
Pasquale, "AI and Electoral Manipulation" Notes
November 10
Rini, "Deepfakes and the Epistemic Backstop" Notes
November 12
Fallis, "The Epistemic Threat of Deepfakes" Notes
November 14
Cont'd
Fourth In-Class Reflection
November 17
Klincewicz & Alfano, "Slopaganda" Notes
November 19
Suleyman, The Coming Wave, Chapters 13-14
November 21
Cont'd
Topic: Algorithmic & Autonomous Decision-Making
November 24
Fazelpour & Danks, "Algorithmic Bias: Senses, Sources, Solutions" Notes
November 26-28: No Class -- Thanksgiving Break
December 1
Lazar, "Legitimacy, Authority, and Democratic Duties of Explanation" Notes
December 3
Cont'd/Review
Third Small Project Due
Final Exam Review Sheet
Monday, Dec 8: 12:45 - 2:45
Final Exam