The final papers, jupyter notebooks, and reflective blog posts have all been turned in, marking the end of the semester. Below are the courses I completed and some light reflection on each of them.
Data and Artificial Intelligence Ethics, Law and Governance (2023-24)
This course was my first foray into a full-blown law course. While there were many things we covered, including the ever-evolving topic of AI Policy, the most important takeaway from this course was the realization that ethics alone isn’t a solution to the world’s challenges. Ethics, taken together with Policy and Law, provides a much more robust solution and a broader lens when assessing issues.
Democracy, Rights and the Rule of Law in the Data-Driven Society (2023-24)
In some ways, this is the sister course to the one above. The spirit of the course was to look at AI not as a regulatory target (which is what we covered in Data and Artificial Intelligence Ethics, Law and Governance) but AI as a regulatory tool. In other words, how and when AI is used administratively. The idea here is that our society is too large and complex to have humans do everything. Societal would suffocate under its own weight. At some point, we need to assign technology some of these responsibilities. But what are the conditions for doing that, and what are the inherent risks in an approach like that?
Insights Through Data (2023-24)
A challenging course, even for someone with coding skills to begin with. Some of the other students in my cohort had an incredibly difficult time with this course because it teaches coding, machine learning, and statistics all at the same time, and at a very rapid pace. For me, the biggest challenge was learning how to write and describe the models I was creating. For example, describing the difference between what a model is designed to do vs. the output of a particular prediction. Also, learning how to articulate whether or not a model meets my assumptions based on my understanding of it gained from the exploratory data analysis (EDA) phases. The big takeaway for me in this course was two-fold. First, I need to improve my writing and articulation of model performance. Secondly, the quality of that reflection impacts others’ perception and understanding of what the model is doing. This is important in regards to transparency, when the quality of my understanding and writing ability affects others’ understanding. In short, it underscores the importance in the role of translator.
Interdisciplinary Futures (2023-24)
The strangest course for me overall, because it focused too much on personal creativity. The sprit of the course was meant to demonstrate the importance of interdisciplinary teams and thinking. Projects are meant to stretch people creatively in their understanding of how we should collaborate. At times, this was true, but with such an international cohort, the overarching lesson sometimes gets watered down in the reality of language and timezone differences. However, there were some interesting takeaways from guest lecturers. One being the importance of specialization, and the idea that one cannot make a contribution to their field without specializing. This is in contrast to the approach of being a generalist. The other was the lesson of using creative writing for broadening your perspective to research. I used this once or twice throughout the course. When I got stuck on how best to frame an argument, I would switch out of that mode and write about it creatively as a way of understanding what was working and what wasn’t. So the course certainly imparted some utility.
Knowledge Integration and Project Planning (2023-24)
This is really just an obligatory blog that every student must maintain. Topics are given weekly, and the blog itself is a useful way to journal the evolution and organization of your thinking regarding your final project. For me, that project is the effect of AI on creative professionals and how they must upskill/reskill to remain economically relevant. It’s still a work in progress, but that’s the central theme I’m circling around.