Coastal Senior College instructor Michael Werner’s upcoming course "What's up with the Artificial Intelligence Explosion?" begins April 25. Space is still available.

Werner states, “You hear about it every day in the news: Artificial Intelligence. To quote Bob Dylan, “You know something is happening but you don't know what it is.” Here’s your chance to find out.

“One doesn’t need to be a techie to take this course. Most of it covers topics such as the societal impact of AI, ethical decisions that come up when programming autonomous cars, and philosophers speculating on futuristic concepts such as machine consciousness. To appreciate the change in AI that has occurred in the last few years, students will gain a basic understanding of the technology. The instructor has taught similar courses at Tufts Osher Senior College and in Mexico at San Miguel de Allende’s Instituto Allende’s Life-Long Learning program.

“The course begins by reading and discussing E. M. Forster’s short story “The Machine Stops." Who knew that Forster was an AI writer? We then look at other portrayals of AI in fiction, such as Dr. Frankenstein’s creature and Mr. Data from Star Trek. After that we spend some time looking at the history of AI and examining some of the early methodologies. These comprise what I call AI 1.0, a period that lasted until about 10 years ago. In the third session we look at AI 2.0, a major shift in how computers themselves learn from data, rather than being programmed.

“In the fourth session we examine autonomous computers, i.e. machines themselves making decisions rather than deferring to humans. As you might imagine, this raises many ethical issues. The fifth session examines the human impact of AI, particularly in terms of loss of jobs, biases in the training data, privacy issues, etc. Finally we discuss ‘futurism,’ speculating about ‘the singularity,’ immortality through machines, machine consciousness, etc.

“To prepare for each session participants may read a recommended article or story, and/or watch some videos, all of which will be available as links from the study group web page. In class we will discuss the assignment and take up further examples. There are no right or wrong answers. The experts themselves are divided.”

Werner is a retired computer science professor from Wentworth Institute of Technology. He has a PhD in computer science from Northeastern University and a long involvement with computers starting in 1963. His recent teaching specialties have been in programming languages and 3D graphics on Android phones. Lately his interests have shifted to the philosophical implications of the computer revolution.

This course will meet in Rockland from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. for six Thursdays from April 25 to May 30 at UMA Rockland Center in the Breakwater Building. To register, call the CSC administrative office at UMA Rockland Center (207-596-6906) or mail in a registration form downloaded from http://coastalseniorcollege.org, or from a CSC catalog found at local libraries and businesses. Each CSC course is $35, and the membership fee is $25.