TIM_BM_023 AI R/Evolutions

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2023
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Luis Armand, PhD. (lecturer), doc. Mgr. Jana Horáková, Ph.D. (deputy)
Guaranteed by
doc. Mgr. Jana Horáková, Ph.D.
Department of Musicology – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Ing. Alena Albíniová
Supplier department: Department of Musicology – Faculty of Arts
Timetable
Mon 13. 11. 10:00–17:40 N41, Tue 14. 11. 10:00–17:40 N41, Wed 15. 11. 10:00–17:40 N41
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 50 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 18/50, only registered: 0/50, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/50
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 12 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
This seminar examines the historical evolution of material consciousness & intelligent machines -- from the Industrial Revolution to the so-called Technological Singularity; from the advent of autopoietic machines to the proposition that any system can be entroped to function as a "neural network"; from AI as human prosthesis to AI as the terminal horizon of the "posthuman condition."
The linkage between mass industrialisation, information systems & ecology brings into view the idea of a semiosphere or noosphere, in which local-global structures exhibit "intelligence." Quantum computing, terraformation & cosmology point to ways in which catastrophic systems also produce a mode of "catastrophic intelligence."
Whether or not humanity can "learn" from the anthropocene is no longer the question here, but what the anthropocene can mean for the idea of a general "technology" of non-human & post-human systems, & ultimately the place of humanly-defined "intelligence" within these.
Where machine learning has previously involved a necessary hierarchy of knowledge-power vis-a-vis humans, this seminar examines the ways in which "machines," or systems in general, make manifest a general materiality of "consciousness" communicable as feedback systems. This feedback produces self-modifying behaviour along the entire spectrum of possible "communication," implying that intelligence, too, is evolutionary.
Literature
    required literature
  • Siegried Giedion, Mechanisation Takes Command
  • Jean Baudrillard, "The Procession of Simulacra"
  • VNS Matrix, "Cyberfeminist Manifesto"
  • McKenzie Wark, "Hacker Manifesto"
  • Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics
  • Donna Hararway, "A Cyborg Manifesto"
  • John McCarthy, Human-Level AI: The Logical Road
  • Arthur Samuel, "Some studies in machine learning using the game of checkers"
  • Alan Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence"
  • Lewis Mumford, Technics & Civilisation
  • Jacques Lacan, “A Materialist Definition of Consciousness”
  • Laboria Cuboniks, "Xenofeminist Manifesto"
  • Warren McCulloch & Walter Pitts, “A Logical Calculus of the ideas Imminent in Nervous Activity”
  • Vanevar Bush, “As We May Think”
  • Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”
    recommended literature
  • Louis Armand, ENTROPOLOGY (https://www.academia.edu/77484038/ENTROPOLOGY)
  • Marshall McLuhan, THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE (https://designopendata.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/themediumisthemassage_marshallmcluhan_quentinfiore.pdf)
  • Charlie Wood, HOW TO MAKE THE UNIVERSE THINK FOR US (https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-to-make-the-universe-think-for-us-20220531/)
  • Buckminster Fuller, SYNERGETICS: EXPLORATIONS IN THE GEOMETRY OF THINKING (https://fullerfuture.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/buckminsterfuller-synergetics.pdf)
  • Allison Whitten, AI OVERCOMES STUMBLING BLOCK ON BRAIN-INSPIRED HARDWARE (https://www.quantamagazine.org/ai-overcomes-stumbling-block-on-brain-inspired-hardware-20220217/)
  • Benjamin Bratton, THE TERRAFORMING (https://www.are.na/block/5810611)
  • Louis Armand, TERATOLOGIES (https://www.academia.edu/41844345/Teratologies)
Teaching methods
Assessment will be based on attendance at the intensive 2-day seminar, plus a 3,000 word essay that examines, within a critical/theoretical framework, the seminar's central proposition that "any system can exhibit 'intelligence.'" Due date: x26. 1. 2024.
Language of instruction
English
Further Comments
Study Materials
The course is taught only once.
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