Rhetoric of Scientific Discourse

This class will explore the ways in which thinking — human and machine — have been transformed with the emergence of digital computing. We will investigate the varieties of “artificial intelligence” while paying attention to how human cognition was reimagined in light of new technologies. The fluid boundary between mind and machine, brain and computer, life and artificial systems, this will be our way of understanding the juxtaposition of philosophy, engineering, art and culture, and cognitive science in our modern era. Readings will include figures such as Alan Turing and Donna Haraway, we will study the films “”2001: A Space Odyssey”” and “”Blade Runner,”” and we will discuss the social and political implications of “algorithmic culture” in our contemporary moment of predictive computation.

The course will have 3 short writing assignments (5 pp) spread across the semester.

The class will consist of two recorded lectures per week, posted on bspace.

Each Thursday there will be a live Zoom class from 2-330. We will break into groups for a quick brainstorming of questions and responses, then spend the rest of the class discussing the topic(s) each group proposes.