SOCI 355 Final Essay Assignment
Write a focused, coherent, and carefully argued response of around 4,000 words to the prompt below. Be sure to attend to every question asked. Mobilize course texts (including both the readings and the various films we saw) as the supportive structure of your argument, even though some of the questions will ask you to go beyond those texts into the speculative. Proofread and revise it with care. A good strategy is to write up a draft and then leave it alone for a few days before coming back to revise with fresh eyes.
The prompt:
Our course has investigated the role of technology in human society, especially focusing on communicative technologies and artificial intelligence. Reflect on the effects of technology in the human world. What consequences does technology have on our personalities, our sense of meaning and purpose in life, our social relations, and our broader relationship with the natural world?
Be sure to begin by defining “technology” in conversation with our readings. Given the positives and negatives of the effects of technology in the human world, make a concerted argument as to how we should think, philosophically, morally, and sociologically, about the place of technology in our world. Should we endeavor to reduce our production of and reliance on technologies? Why? How?
A substantial part of your argument here should be directed specifically toward artificial intelligence. Is artificial intelligence, in its current forms and in hypothetical super-intelligent forms, different than other technologies? How? Do those differences warrant a different approach with it? What are likely to be the outcomes of more widespread use of artificial intelligence, again, both in current forms and in the super-intelligent forms that are being researched by many companies? What should our policies be regarding artificial intelligence? Should we endeavor to limit its further development? If so, how? If not, why not?