Robots, Humans and AI: From Past Visions to Future Stories

Summer Residential Program:
Robots, Humans and AI: From Past Visions to Future Stories

Course Length: Two Weeks
Dates: July 19 - July 31

Program Cost: $4,950

Associated Majors: B.A. in Philosophy; B.A. Accelerated Law Program; B. A. in Science Communication

Cyborgs – or biotechnological hybrid bodies – are familiar to us through 19th-century stories such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and often through dystopian science fiction narratives in film, literature and art of the 20th and 21st centuries. However, the fascination with and fear of robots and cyborgs is as ancient as the records we have from ancient China, Egypt and Greece. This course analyzes examples of robots and cyborgs from antiquity through early industrialization in the first week as a way to understand what we focus on in the second week: the rapidly growing field of transhumanism in techno-philosophy. While some philosophers express fears similar to those of the ancients and warn us against the development of fully autonomous humanoid robots, others are aligned with the current Techno-Optimist push for enhanced humans and engineered sentience. This course considers questions such as, “Where is the line between human and machine, and why does it matter?” and, “What are the values expressed by both the techno-optimists and the pessimists, and how does capitalism fit into each of these philosophies?