Social impacts of AI systems

Part VI, AI 100, 2026W1

Learning outcomes

Students will be able to:

1. Envision and describe plausible societal changes due to AI advancement.
2. Debate the benefits and risks of AGI and superhuman intelligence.
3. Explain why current AI systems are not sentient.
4. Articulate philosophical perspectives on consciousness.
5. Apply metaphors (e.g., corporations) to reason about superhuman AI behavior.

Theme: Consider potential future developments in AI, including transformative benefits, risks, and philosophical questions.

Select topics

• How will our society change?
  • AI entertainment and new art forms
  • Changes in the structure of the workforce
  • AI-powered social connections with real people
  • AI friends
• AGI and Superhuman intelligence
  • Using the metaphor of a corporation to understand superhuman AI
  • Benefits: problems we may need superhuman intelligence to address
  • Risks and potential mitigations; existential risk
• Sentience
  • Reasons to believe current AI systems are not sentient
  • Philosophical view on “the hard problem of consciousness”