This course will discuss minds, machines, the relationships between them, and the relationships they encourage and discourage. Throughout we will compare and contrast human minds and brains with machine ‘minds’ and ‘brains,’ considering questions like: Could a machine have a mind? Could a machine be conscious, or think in the ways that people do? What can human brains teach us about how a thinking machine might work, and vice versa? What might information processing, information integration, and information availability have to do with consciousness? Could the internet be conscious? How could we tell? How do machines and our interactions with them influence how humans think, learn, reason, and know? What are the promises and perils of artificial intelligence, big data, and gargantuan networks, especially when the underlying mechanics of machine and network reasoning are not transparent to us? How should machines be treated—including machines that exhibit some but not all features of human minds? Why? How should machines treat us?

Course Requirements:

In addition to reading from the required texts, we will read selected articles and watch several films (available online), including Werner Herzog’s Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World; Spike Jonze’s Her; Lilly and Lana Wachowski’s The Matrix; and an episode or two of Black Mirror.

Intended Audience:

This course welcomes entirely online participation. While there will be optional in-person components, no part of this course requires you to be on campus or present in-person.

Class Format:

Two lectures and one discussion section per week. The lecture will be held synchronously; a recording will also be posted on the Canvas site. Some of the discussion sections will be held in-person; the sections will also have an online synchronous option.