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AI & Society

Course Description

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being adopted at an increasing pace by companies, public organisations and government. It creates new business opportunities and is seen as a powerful tool to address key societal challenges such as health and sustainability. However, AI empowers those who understand how to harness this new technology and it potentially disadvantages those who don’t have the skills, knowledge and know-how to understand or shape it.

Fundamentally, AI is a technology that allows us to automate decisions that normally would have been done by people or organisations. AI decides which news is important, who should get a loan, and what medical treatment might be most promising. In that sense, AI affects all of us, whether we realise it or not. In a wider sense, AI affects all of society. This raises fundamental question:

  • How should AI be used, for what purpose? And who decides this?
  • How can we ensure that AI is used in a responsible way? And who gets to decide what responsibility means?

You are training to become a designer. As a designer it is highly likely that sometime during your career you will be involved in the design and development of an AI-powered product or service and that you will make design decisions that affect a wide range of people. Thus, these questions become your questions:

  • How do you as a designer decide how AI should be used and for what purpose?
  • How do you as a designer ensure that AI is used in a responsible way?
  • And what is your understanding of “responsible AI”?

To answer these questions, designers need to expand their repertoire of tools and methods. This is what AI & Society is about: to equip you with the technical foundation, ethical concepts and design framework to analyse the issues raised by AI, to design responsible AI products and services, and to make convincing arguments about the value and impact of your designs.

This course focuses on the use of AI by the Municipality of Amsterdam. The Municipality of Amsterdam is not only at the forefront in employing digital technologies but also a strong proponent of the responsible use of AI.