Embedded Files
Foul-Weather Policy: If UR closes for winter weather, we'll meet via Zoom.
Focus: Where are we now with generative AI?
August 26 (in Person Class)
August 26 (in Person Class)
Part 1) I'll introduce class information and teach you about the focused-reading notes you'll keep for your responses. We'll take a short survey to assess your interests and needs, if you have not already taken it. For our first class, you should do the following readings/viewings?
Watch Malcolm Gladwell's 30-minute interview with IBM's AI guru, Dario Gil. "Generative AI: A Conversation With Malcolm Gladwell and Dario Gil."
Orienting questions for class : how does what Gil and Gladwell discuss relate to your experience with AI? What are your concerns about your future work, after watching this (in particular, the parts of the video following 15:44 about the future of work)?
Kinder, M. et. al. Brookings Institution, 10 October 2024. "Generative AI, The American Worker, and The Future of Work."
Orienting question for class: How do you think YOU can prepare in this class and elsewhere for a workplace where AI usage is not only common but demanded?
Part 2) After our discussion, I'll introduce you to the tasks ahead for next week, notably beginning your reading/viewing journal (much of your participation grade, 50% of your final grade in the course).
Slides from class can be found here.
Screeenshot of classroom blackboard from 9/26/25: Brainstorming exercise from prompt:
"How do you think YOU can prepare in this class and elsewhere for a workplace where AI usage is not only common but demanded?"
Focus: When to use it? When not?
September 2 (in Person Class)
September 2 (in Person Class)
Be sure you have read and have journal entries for each of these by 9am, the day of class. You can see how the journal should look from this example I did for last week's reading/viewing. I will begin grading journals this week.
Discussion Partners tonight (AI generated!):
Group 1: Bijan, Caitlin, Dylan, Haley
Group 2: Jayden, Katie, Kenny, Mauricio
Group 3: Sean, Tierra, William
Bogost, I. "College Students Have Changed Forever." 17 August 2025, The Atlantic. (I will provide a copy & gift link).
Mollick, E. "15 Times to Use AI, 5 Times Not To" (Blog post)
Sano-Franchini, J. et al. "Refusing Generative AI in Writing Studies." (blog post/manifesto).
Essid, J. "The CCCC and Refusing AI: A Rebuttal" (blog post).
Slides from class can be found here.
Image: Hazer's Gallery. Nikola Tesla & Robot (Photoshopped)
Focus: Prompt Engineering
At home, begin a prompt-engineering worksheet. Make a copy and have it ready by class. Also copy it into your journal. Finally, be sure you have read and have journal entries for each of these by 9am, the day of class.
Mollick, E. "A Guide to Prompting AI (For What It Is Worth)" (blog post)
Giray, L. "Prompt Engineering with ChatGPT: A Guide for Academic Writers."
We will use NotebookLM (Google account required) and/or Research Rabbit AI Tool (requires free account) in class to find other articles of interest. Check to see if you can access these tools at home before class.
Groups for tonight:
Group 1: Bijan, Caitlin, Tierra, Sean
Group 2: Haley, Katie, Kenny, Jayden
Group 3: Dylan, Mauricio, William
Slides from class can be found here. Zoom AI produced a summary of our "big room" conversation here.
Focus: Ethics & AI
September 16 (in Person Class)
September 16 (in Person Class)
Be sure you have read and have journal entries for each of these by 9am, the day of class.
Asimov, A. The Three Laws of Robotics (from Wikipedia).
Prisznyák, A. "Ethical AI." Read Part 1 (163-166), Part 3 (167-169), Table 5 (174). Skim the rest as needed.
Yujie Sun, Y. et al. "AI Hallucination: Towards a Comprehensive Classification of Distorted Information in Artificial Intelligence-Generated Content." Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11, Article number: 1278 (2024). Pay close attention to the introduction (the information about hallucination and disinformation will open many eyes!) and discussion section near the end, in particular.
Our goal: we will develop rules for ethical AI, using criteria your group develops using this worksheet. Each group will try a different commercial AI for this purpose. Groups will each give a short presentation of their findings.
Focus: How Quickly is AI Evolving? Or Not?
Be sure you have read and have journal entries for each of these by 9am, the day of class. For the NYT and Atlantic pieces, I will enable a gift link over the weekend. It expires fast, so go in and listen to the podcast. I can provide a PDF copy.
Altman, S. "The Gentle Singularity." 10 June 2025. (Blog post)
Roose, K "Why I'm Feeling the A.G.I." 14 March 2025, The New York Times.
Reisner A. "Chatbots are Cheating on their Benchmark Tests." 5 March 2025, The Atlantic.
Karma, R. "Just How Bad Would an AI Bubble Be?" 7 September 2025, The Atlantic.
Groups For Tonight:
Group 1: Mauricio, Tierra, Haley, Kenny
Group 2: Bijan, Caitlin, Jayden, William
Group 3: Katie, Dylan, Sean
Orienting Questions for class:
Note how many times Roose begins a sentence with "I believe." What's his evidence? We academics might start with a belief, but we want evidence from trustworthy sources.
What about Altman, Karma, and Reisner? What evidence do they provide for their claims?
Who among all four makes the strongest case? Why do you feel that way?
Slides from class can be found here.
Focus: Hidden Costs
September 30 (in Person Class)
September 30 (in Person Class)
Be sure you have read and have journal entries for each of these by 9am, the day of class.
Orienting questions for class: What have you heard, before this class, about any of these complications? What might they mean for restructuring how we teach and learn on campus?
Slides for class can be found here. A list of ideas from the class, about restructuring education & learning on campus, can be found here.
Groups for Tonight:
Group 1: Bijan, Mauricio, Sean, Kenny
Group 2: Caitlin, Haley, Dylan, William
Group 3: Jayden, Katie, Tierra
Tremayne-Pengelly, A. "A.I. Data Centers Are Emitting Nearly as Much Greenhouse Gases As Commercial Airlines." 17 December 2024, The Observer.
Perrigo, B. "OpenAI Used Kenyan Workers on Less Than $2 Per Hour to Make ChatGPT Less Toxic." 18 January 2023. Time.
Reisner, A. "The Unbelievable Scale of AI's Pirated-Books Problem" 20 March 2025, The Atlantic. and "AI Giant Antropic to Pay $1.5 bn Over Pirated Books" 6 September, 2025 Space Daily (do you usual journal entry for Reisner; include any remarks for the story on Anthropic in comments about Reisner's article.
Singer, N. "Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle." 10 August, 2025, The New York Times. (I will provide a copy)
Focus: Hidden Opportunities
Be sure you have read and have journal entries for each of these by 9am, the day of class.
Orienting questions for class: How do these readings (and the Anthropic piece from last week) show a move toward the sorts of "norms" that Dario Gil mentioned to Gladwell and that Bogost claims we need?
Alexander, B. "The Rise of the AI Intermediary Layer" (Substack Post)
Mollick, E. "Real AI Agents and Real Work" (Substack Post)
Autor, D. & Manyika, J. "A Better Way to Think about AI." 24 August 2025, The Atlantic. (I will provide link access and a copy)
Focus: Reviewing Forthcoming Work About AI & Writing
Focus: Frontiers for Researching AI (I will invite my co-editor Saurabh Anand to join our class)
Research review due to me and Saurabh, to forward to authors
Focus: Podcasting with AI Workshop
November 4 (in Person Class)
November 4 (in Person Class)
Be sure you have read and have journal entries for each of these by 9am, the day of class.
Emperado, L. "How to Create a Podcast with AI." (you'll want to hear the examples and look over advice for prompting an AI to help script your podcast).
Eng. 215 students' podcast assignments, scripts, and podcasts (for fiction). Note how scripts got radically changed when fed to an AI!
We will do group work to prepare your partners for any revisions to scripts and output.
Focus: Podcasting with AI Workshop, Part II
We will brainstorm ideas you can take home to write scripts to try with ElevenLabs podcast generator.
Focus: AI as Artist
November 18 (in Person Class)
November 18 (in Person Class)
Be sure you have read and have journal entries for each of these by 9am, the day of class.\
Baxter, C. "AI Art: The End of Creativity or The Start of a New Movement?" (BBC)
Web site for the AI artist Ai-Da
Review but not needed as a journal entry: (We will use this in class): "Artificial Intelligence for Image Research." University of Toronto Libraries.
Focus: Preparing for your Mini TED-Talks
Focus: Mini TED Talks!
December 2 (in Person Class)
December 2 (in Person Class)
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