1. Week 1 - Pathways to AI - Google Slides
Welcome everyone!
Look forward to our first meeting next week. If you only get to look at one or two readings, I’d suggest the first of the Cope & Kalantzis papers (2022), and the McCarthy et al. (2006/1955) proposal. The other readings – especially the books, though I recommend them both – can be considered background material.
Like many others in the past year, the past week has been full of important events and announcements. The release of DeepSeek R1 brings reasoning to open source Large Language Models, while OpenAI leads a consortium building AI infrastructure at staggering scale.
But how did we get here? In this first week, we discuss some of the history of Artificial Intelligence - a history that goes back much further than McCarthy’s seminal 1955 proposal in many ways. We will also discuss how this history is intimately connected with theories about education, learning and development. How we design computer systems to “think like us” builds upon ideas of who “we” are: how we reason, speak and use other information modalities.
In future weeks we will fan out our interests to look at technical, philosophical, ethical and pedagogical dimensions of AI. Look forward to speaking with you soon.
Readings
Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2022). Artificial Intelligence in the Long View: From Mechanical Intelligence to Cyber-social Systems. _Discover Artificial Intelligence_, _2_(13), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44163-022-00029-1
Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (2023). A Little History of e-Learning: Finding New Ways to Learn in the PLATO Computer Education System, 1959-1976. _History of Education_, _52_(6), 905-936. https://doi.org/10.1080/0046760X.2022.2141353
Crawford, K. (2021). _Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence_. Yale University Press.
LeCun, Yann, “Deep Learning Hardware: Past, Present, and Future,” IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference, 2019:12-19. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8662396/
McCarthy, John, Marvin L. Minsky, Nathaniel Rochester, and Claude E. Shannon, “A Proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence: August 31, 1955,” The AI Magazine 27: no. 4 (2006): 12-14. http://jmc.stanford.edu/articles/dartmouth/dartmouth.pdf.
McCarthy, John (2000). The Question of Artificial Intelligence. https://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/reviews/bloomfield/bloomfield.html
Wooldridge, M. (2020). _A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence_. Flatiron Books.
Assignment(s):
- Contribute to asynchronous conversation on video lectures and
course materials.
- Blogpost 1: brainstorming project (250 words - due end of Week 1 / Jan
31st)
For the first blogpost, pick any one of these readings and discuss in relation to your own interests in education. Feel free to include contemporary links, news or announcements as well.
For the asynchronous conversation, post a comment on someone else’s work or on this update.