PHI 2101 - 2050: Utopia-Dystopia

Credits: 4
Biogenetic engineering, artificial intelligence and digital industries, the three shapers of what is coined the ‘Fourth Revolution’ make us dream of overcoming the limitations of the human condition. A world of brain-nets and instant knowledge transmission, designer-babies and human-robot fusions are viewed in public discourse as either utopian promise or dystopian decline. But no matter how we anticipate the future, the reality we know will disappear. In this course, we will study the projected transformations of the Fourth Revolution and how they impact human lives. Specifically, we will focus on the following questions: How will artificial intelligence and bioengineered augmentations redefine what it means to be human? Will access to these enhancement technologies divide us into human and ‘transhumans,’ thereby amplifying socio-economic divides? How will our social interactions and communication patterns be impacted by calculative values designed for and by artificial intelligence? How might philosophical and literary conceptualizations of utopia, ‘retrotopia,’ and dystopia help us to step into this new era? Martin Heidegger, Jean Baudrillard, Zygmunt Bauman and other philosophers anticipated some of the problems arising out of technological progress. Engaging with their analysis and commendations, we will formulate our own pathway into the future.
McDaniel Plan: Social, Cultural, and Historical Understanding