The Anthropocene: An Introduction

Planetary AI

This class will examine how AI is transforming our planet. Our investigation will engage with how AI intersects with environment, extraction, politics, and history. For example, how mineral and material battles for silicon conductors are changing the geopolitics of the planet and shifting secutrity concerns. We will also examine the intersections between environment and AI--examining everything from energy grids to 'green' AI and global weather modeling. Finally, we will ask how AI is changing our ideas of politics and the 'human', are older categories of political agency and political economy--democracy, the nation state, and labor--relevant to today. How are these categories changing? 

The course will offer preliminary introduction into the technology, and students will engage multi-modal research. We will engage in creative approaches to visualizing and mapping the new landscapes of AI.  We will also try and visit some infrastructures of AI like server farms, Chip manufacturers, and other sites of importance. We will also be creative!!! Arts, literature, and comic books will be out guides. We will try and find new ideas and new vocabularies to re-imagine our contemporary technical infrastructures. It will be fun, but also very educational about our present, and will give students a comprehensive understanding of the technology of neural networks as well as the emerging landscape of geo-politics and political economy resulting from this technology. 

Readings and sample projects will include:

Kate Crawford: Atlas of AI/ Anatomy of an AI: https://anatomyof.ai/

Chris Miller, Chip Wars

Keller Easterling: Zonee: The Spatial Software of Extrastatecraft: https://www.kellereasterling.com/articles/zone-the-spatial-softwares-of-extrastatecraft

Dates for the course: (1PM-4:30)

April 20

April 27

May 4

May 11

May 18

June 1