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Instructors: Dr. Angela Oels
Event type:
Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
IR: Digitization
Hours per week:
2
Credits:
6,0
Language of instruction:
English
Min. | Max. participants:
10 | 24
Comments/contents:
This course introduces the global politics of digitization and artificial intelligence. The first part of this course introduces AI and in particular machine learning. Artificial intelligence (AI) designates amongst others processes of machine learning that allow the automation of recognition, surveillance, sorting and decision-making of objects and subjects. We discuss the promise and the risks associated with the rise of AI. AI is praised (amongst others) as the most promising technological solution to the environmental crisis with its alleged capacity to optimize resource flows. At the same time, there are stark warnings of the potential for unlimited surveillance of humans by private and governmental authorities, thereby endangering political freedoms especially (but not only) in authoritarian states. From the perspective of science and technology studies, we characterize the new ways of knowing enabled by AI, compare them to traditional science and ask if this is the end of traditional science. From the perspective of feminist and postcolonial studies, we investigate bias in AI knowledge that results from extrapolating past and present trends. How can bias in machine learning be discovered and what can be done to minimize it?
The remainder of the course turns towards global politics. Each session will introduce a particular theory of International Relations (IR) in order to inform the discussion of an AI case study. The second part of the course introduces Neorealism and Neoliberal Institutionalism and matches them up with security related case studies. From the perspective of Neorealism, we study a case of non-collaboration "under anarchy": We explore how China, the U.S. and Russia are engaged in an "arms race" in the field of AI, each seeking absolute gains on the path to superpower. From the perspective of Neoliberal Institutionalism and regime theory, we analyse under which conditions selfish nation-states will engage in co-operation. There have been calls for a ban on lethal autonomous weapon systems, also known as "killer robots", that we will investigate before this theoretical background.
The third part of the course turns towards new business models and investigates those from Neo-Marxist perspectives. Most new business models are based on data as resource and product. Their main economic activity is "data extractivism" (Morozov and Bria 2018), creating user profiles that allow for targeted advertising. The platform economy is built around matching supply with demand, cashing in on the service of making the match, without owning any assets. From the perspective of Neo-Gramscianism, we explore Zuboff’s (2019) thesis that the nature of capitalism has been transformed into something best understood as "surveillance capitalism". Is a new class of digital capitalists ruling the world?
The fourth part of the course looks into (the need for more) political regulation to keep the risks of digitization and AI in check. From the perspective of constructivism and new institutionalism, we investigate the EU’s privacy protection regulation (the European General Data Protection Regulation) and anti-trust regulation to curb monopolies and ask how effective they have been in reclaiming rights of privacy and democratic self-determination. Moreover, we investigate the emergence of international norms and institutions that regulate AI or seek to establish universal "ethics for AI", like the 2021 update of the Coordinated Plan on AI of the European Commission and the EU Member States. From the perspective of postcolonial theory, such attempts can be criticized as EU-centric and neo-colonial. There is a need to include a broader spectrum of actors and insights especially from the global South in order to inform future global regulation.
Learning objectives:
- Basic knowledge of artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning and its applications
- Overview of the promise and risks associated with AI
- Ability to discuss differences between knowledge generated by AI and knowledge generated by “traditional science”
- Ability to use feminist and postcolonial theories to explain bias in AI knowledge
- Advanced understanding of theories of International Relations
- Ability to apply IR theories to AI case studies in order to explain outcomes
- Advanced understanding of how AI has been governed in the European Union in the past and present, the main actors and the most contested issues
Didactic concept:
This course is taught online in weekly Zoom-sessions on Thursdays from 14:15-15:45. We begin each session with a short presentation on the week’s topic, prepared by students. The main part of the session will be dedicated to a guided discussion in small groups (break-out rooms) followed by a plenary. The course teacher will make sure all important aspects of the week’s topic are covered and give additional input where needed. We will also use pro/contra discussions or case study work where this is promising. There is a selection of mandatory readings that all students need to prepare for each session. All course materials will be uploaded on openOLAT (mandatory reading, presentation slides, instructions for exam papers).
Literature:
All course literature will be uploaded in openOLAT.
Additional examination information:
Leistungsanforderungen (requirements):
- FSB WiSe 14/15 (Masterzulassung ab 2014), Modul Internationales Regieren (IR): Studienleistungen (siehe A) und ggf. Hausarbeit (siehe B)
- FSB WiSe 13/14 (Masterzulassung 2013), Profilmodul: Studienleistungen (siehe A) und Hausarbeit (siehe B)
- Wahlbereich: Studienleistungen (siehe A)
A) Studienleistungen (unbenotet):
Mandatory course tasks (required to pass): All students need to study the mandatory reading in advance of each weekly session and should be able to summarise the main insights upon request. All students need to pick a date for a mandatory presentation. For these selected dates, students are expected to prepare a 15-minute-presentation in a group of 2 on the topic chosen drawing on a presentation software like Powerpoint. The presentation should be presented ‚live‘ in the Zoom session. Moreover, students are asked to develop a task for small-group work in break-out rooms (to last 15-25 minutes). This could be a role game, a case study to discuss based on a suitable newspaper article, that will deepen the understanding of the issue under discussion. Students who are presenting have to send a draft of the presentation slides and the preliminary ideas for discussion by Tuesday 9:00 am before the presentation date. There will be an online meeting with the presenting students two days before your session (on the Tuesday before) to discuss the draft. You are required to attend all Zoom sessions and should not miss more than two in total. If you miss more than two sessions (even if for health reasons), you need to undertake additional tasks in order to pass the course.
B) Prüfungsart: (mode of examination): essay
Bewertungsschema: benotet (RPO) (marked)
Umfang (word count): min. 3500 - max. 4000 Words (reference list is excluded from word count). You are encouraged to submit essays in teams of two, but this is not mandatory. For teams of two, the word count is not doubled, but reduced to 5000 words (without counting references).
Abgabetermin: (due date) 15.03.2022
Abgabeort: to be submitted on openOLAT
The research question of the exam paper should be approved by the course teacher before you start to write the paper. Please upload a 1-page exposé with your topic, research question, theory, method and outline in openOLAT by 10 January 2022.
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