What does it mean to be human if thinking and reasoning can be done by a machine? The advent and proliferation of generative AI tools raises a host of profound and unsettling questions. While some herald the AI revolution and its promise to liberate us from mental drudgery, others prophecy doom and oppression. While the technology might be new, the anxiety and ambivalence are not. From Socrates, who worried that the technology of writing would "implant forgetfulness in the learners' soul," to Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer who quipped, "machinery mutilates people today, even if it also feeds them," writers and thinkers across place and time have looked on with horror and awe, hope and despair, as technology has transformed the way we live, work, and gain knowledge of our world. In this intellectual history seminar, we will read classic texts that have engaged with questions related to technological innovation and taken stock of both its promise and peril. Readings include work by Plato, Martin Heidegger, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Rachel Carson, Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, Alan Turing, and Donna Haraway. Alongside these texts we will consider some of the historical developments and themes that motivated these authors: industrialization, the mechanization of warfare, nuclear destruction, the space age, the rise of consumer culture, environmental degradation, the spread of surveillance technologies, and reproductive freedom. Through reading, discussing, and working out complex ideas together, this class will give us a deeper vocabulary and conceptual framework for thinking through the current moment.
3-5 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit
What does it mean to be human if thinking and reasoning can be done by a machine? The advent and proliferation of generative AI tools raises a host of profound and unsettling questions. While some herald the AI revolution and its promise to liberate us from mental drudgery, others prophecy doom and oppression. While the technology might be new, the anxiety and ambivalence are not. From Socrates, who worried that the technology of writing would "implant forgetfulness in the learners' soul," to Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer who quipped, "machinery mutilates people today, even if it also feeds them," writers and thinkers across place and time have looked on with horror and awe, hope and despair, as technology has transformed the way we live, work, and gain knowledge of our world. In this intellectual history seminar, we will read classic texts that have engaged with questions related to technological innovation and taken stock of both its promise and peril. Readings include work by Plato, Martin Heidegger, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Rachel Carson, Herbert Marcuse, Michel Foucault, Alan Turing, and Donna Haraway. Alongside these texts we will consider some of the historical developments and themes that motivated these authors: industrialization, the mechanization of warfare, nuclear destruction, the space age, the rise of consumer culture, environmental degradation, the spread of surveillance technologies, and reproductive freedom. Through reading, discussing, and working out complex ideas together, this class will give us a deeper vocabulary and conceptual framework for thinking through the current moment.
Offered in Winter 2027 at Stanford University.