PSCI261 - Emerging Technologies and the Future of the World

Technological change is always occurring, but the rate of change seems to be accelerating. Advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, cyber, biotechnology, and other arenas generate promise as well as peril for humanity. Will these emerging technologies unleash the innovative capacity of the world, generating new opportunities that help people live meaningful lives? Alternatively, are automation and other technologies chipping away at the labor market in a way that could create severe generational dislocation at best, and national and international turmoil at worst? These questions are important, and have consequences for how we live our lives, how nations interact, and the future of the world writ large. Emerging technologies could shape public policy at the local, national, and international level, and raise questions of fairness, ethics, and transparency. This course takes a unique approach, combining insights from engineering, political science, and law in an interdisciplinary way that will expose students both to the key technologies that could shape the future and ways to think about their potentia politics, and society.