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1 - 10 of 11 results for: STS

STS 10SI: Introduction to AI Alignment

As we delegate more and more societal responsibilities to Artificial Intelligence, we raise pressing ethical questions about what will happen if these systems aren't aligned with our values. Increasingly many AI experts across academia and industry believe there is an urgent need for both technical and societal progress across AI alignment, ethics, and governance to understand and mitigate risks from advanced AI systems and ensure that their contributions benefit humanity and the world. Intro to AI Alignment explores these questions in lectures and small discussion-based environments led by student facilitators with targeted readings, weekly quizzes and group discussions, and a small final project. After recapping recent advancements in AI development, we will start by exploring two sides of the AI alignment problem that prevent us from building AI systems that reliably understand and follow human-compatible values. Next, we'll discuss current harms from AI as well as risks that future more »
As we delegate more and more societal responsibilities to Artificial Intelligence, we raise pressing ethical questions about what will happen if these systems aren't aligned with our values. Increasingly many AI experts across academia and industry believe there is an urgent need for both technical and societal progress across AI alignment, ethics, and governance to understand and mitigate risks from advanced AI systems and ensure that their contributions benefit humanity and the world. Intro to AI Alignment explores these questions in lectures and small discussion-based environments led by student facilitators with targeted readings, weekly quizzes and group discussions, and a small final project. After recapping recent advancements in AI development, we will start by exploring two sides of the AI alignment problem that prevent us from building AI systems that reliably understand and follow human-compatible values. Next, we'll discuss current harms from AI as well as risks that future systems could pose and arguments for and against the importance of various AI safety work. Finally, we will learn about existing AI safety technical research, efforts to implement policy and governance measures that reduce AI risk, and how you can personally contribute to AI safety. Basic knowledge about machine learning helps but is not required. Enrollment is by application only. View the full syllabus and apply online at https://linktr.ee/stanfordaialignment by Sunday, Dec 17, 2023 at 9:00 PM PST.
Terms: Aut, Win | Units: 2
Instructors: Edwards, P. (PI)

STS 144: Adventures in Video Gaming and Society

By framing video games as complex sociotechnical systems, this course works to reveal the threads of identity, power, and politics present throughout the video games that, in turn, configure players and play. Although the primary 'texts' of the course will be video games themselves, we will intersect these readings with work in STS, the Philosophy of Technology, and constellated fields to draw out the deeper social orders video games reproduce, amplify, and challenge. Material understanding will be evaluated via discussion, debate, written assessments, and a final conceptual design of a video game.
Terms: Aut | Units: 4
Instructors: Fox, A. (PI)

STS 177: The Cultural Politics of Food and Eating: Technology, History, and Justice

This course will examine our everyday food practices as a site of politics where culture, technology, history, and issues of ethics and justice intersect. Through a survey of academic, journalistic, and artistic works on food and eating, the course will explore a set of key analytical frameworks and conceptual tools in STS, such as the politics of technology, classification and identity, the reproduction of inequality, ethical and responsible innovation, and nature/culture boundaries. The topics covered include: the industrialization of agriculture; globalization and local foodways; food justice and ethics; new technologies in food practices (e.g., biotechnology, delivery apps); health and diet trends; and food and global challenges (e.g., climate change, COVID-19). Through food as a window, the course intends to achieve two broad intellectual goals. First, students will explore various theoretical and methodological approaches in STS and related fields (e.g., anthropology, history, sociology). Second, students will develop a set of basic skills and tools for their own critical thinking and empirical research, and design and conduct independent research on a topic related to food.
Terms: Aut | Units: 4-5 | UG Reqs: WAY-SI
Instructors: Sato, K. (PI)

STS 198: Independent Research

Independent research. Student develops own project with supervision by an STS faculty affiliate. Students must email Prof. Edwards with brief project description and name of faculty supervisor. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 1-5 | Repeatable for credit
Instructors: Edwards, P. (PI)

STS 199: Independent Study

Every unit of credit is understood to represent three hours of work per week per term and is to be agreed upon between the student and the faculty member. Instructor consent required. Please contact the department for a permission number.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 1-5 | Repeatable for credit

STS 199A: Curricular Practical Training

Students obtain internship in a relevant research or industrial activity to enhance their professional experience consistent with their degree program and area of concentration. Prior to enrolling students must get internship approved by the STS Program Director. At the end of the quarter, a one-page final report must be supplied documenting work done and relevance to degree program. Meets the requirements for Curricular Practical Training for students on F-1 visas. Student is responsible for arranging own internship. Limited to declared STS majors only. Course may be repeated twice. Instructor consent required. Please contact the department for a permission number.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum | Units: 1 | Repeatable 2 times (up to 2 units total)
Instructors: Edwards, P. (PI)

STS 199J: Editing a Science Technology and Society Journal

The Science Technology and Society (STS) Program has a student journal, Intersect, that has been publishing STS student papers for a number of years. This course involves learning about how to serve as an editor of a peer-reviewed journal, while serving as one of the listed editors of Intersect. Entirely operated online, the journal uses a work-flow management to help with the submission process, peer-review, editing, and publication. Student editors learn by being involved in the publishing process, from soliciting manuscripts to publishing the journal's annual issue, while working in consultation with the instructor. Students will also learn about current practices and institutional frameworks around open access and digital publishing.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 1-2 | Repeatable 2 times (up to 4 units total)

STS 200J: Technometabolism: Technology, Society, and the Anthropocene

The technosphere - the global sum of all infrastructure - metabolizes energy, materials, and information to feed human consumption. It runs on fossil fuels and solar energy, metabolized through such processes as photosynthesis (agriculture), photovoltaics, wind, and hydroelectric power. The technosphere also metabolizes information, ingesting some kinds of data as inputs and producing other data as outputs. Techno-metabolism's waste products, such as greenhouse gases, plastics, and nuclear waste, are currently transforming the atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, with radically different effects on disparate peoples and places. Scientists, historians, engineers, and others have proposed new ways to conceptualize techno-metabolism, seeking to reduce its energy requirements and material waste. Students will develop creative ways to visualize, understand, and change the interplay of energy, materials, and information to respond to environmental crises in the Anthropocene era.
Terms: Aut | Units: 4

STS 200Q: Sociology of Science (EDUC 120, EDUC 320, SOC 330)

This course explores the social construction of scientific knowledge from various perspectives. The course begins by taking stock of core philosophical theories on scientific knowledge and then it proceeds to ask how various authors have described and characterized this knowledge as socially embedded and constructed. Through this course we will ask what sort of knowledge is considered scientific or not? And then from there, a variety of social, institutional and historical factors will enter and influence not only how scientific knowledge is discovered and developed, but also how we evaluate it. This course is suitable to advanced undergraduates and doctoral students.
Terms: Aut | Units: 3-4

STS 298: STS Honors Meeting

This is a required monthly meeting for STS Honors students.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr | Units: 1 | Repeatable 3 times (up to 3 units total)
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