Spring '24 Course Offerings
This spring, the Ethics Lab team is offering classes in environmental ethics, AI ethics, data ethics, and design.
Ethics of AI & Health
PHIL-2090, 3 credits
Taught by Ethics Lab Assistant Professor Joel de Lara
Class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30pm–1:45pm in Ethics Lab (Healy 201)
Satisfies Georgetown Core requirement (Philosophy)
CRN: 46500
Artificial intelligence is re-shaping health and healthcare at a blistering pace. Doctors are using machine-learning algorithms to diagnose illnesses faster and more accurately than a human can. Smart devices are tracking and analyzing the personal health metrics of millions. Surgical teams are using augmented reality underpinned by AI algorithms to guide scalpels and increase precision. These advances hold both ethical opportunities and ethical challenges—from the promise of cheaper, more effective, more personalized care, and advancements in research and therapeutics to the perils of algorithmic bias, the loss or devaluing of human care, the cementing of health inequities, and the surveillance and exploitation of minoritized and vulnerable groups. This course will provide an introduction to critical issues in AI and Health Ethics that aims to equip students with key ethical concepts, theories, and frameworks to help navigate this complex emergent terrain. Particular foci will include AI developments in areas of physical, mental, sexual, and social health, and the course will canvas key readings in bioethics, political philosophy, and feminist and critical race theory.
Intro to Environmental Ethics
PHIL-1101, 3 credits
Taught by Ethics Lab Postdoctoral Fellow Minji Jang
Class meets Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:00am–12:15pm in Ethics Lab (Healy 201)
Satisfies Georgetown Core requirement (Philosophy)
SFS/CULP Social Science
CRN: 46633
In this course, we investigate the ethics of human interaction with the world around us. What is nature? What is wilderness? Is there such a thing? How should we design our parks, our cities, our agricultural systems–according to what values? Who should design these systems, manage them, and so on? How do we weigh environmental values when they conflict? How do we maintain a responsible hope in the face of existential environmental threats? Topics in the course will include environmental justice, biodiversity, animal ethics, climate change, consumerism, suburban sprawl, zoning, food ethics, and more.
This course is part of the foundational experience in the proposed Joint Environment and Sustainability Program (JESP). It is anticipated that this will be a required foundational course within the JESP degree. Some seats will be reserved for students interested in pursuing the proposed JESP degree.
Introduction to Tech, Ethics, & Society
PHIL-2100, 3 credits
Taught by TES Assistant Professor Shannon Brick
Class meets Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00am–12:15pm in Ethics Lab (Healy 201)
Satisfies Georgetown Core requirement (Philosophy)
Satisfies Computer Science, Ethics & Society major requirement
Satisfies Computer Science concentration in Technology, Ethics, & Society requirement
Satisfies Tech, Ethics, & Society minor requirement
CRN: 46501
Emerging technologies provide new capabilities for improving our lives. But they can also pose novel and significant risks to our societies. For instance, artificial intelligence systems trained using machine learning techniques and enormous data sets are being deployed for a rapidly increasing number of important tasks. These range from the mundane, such as recommending movies and targeting advertising, to the crucial, as in hiring or even pre-trial detention decisions. These AI systems raise pressing new ethical issues. For instance, many of these systems display discriminatory bias. How can this bias be mitigated? Who should be accountable for ensuring that it is? Moreover, the effectiveness of machine learning depends on collecting huge amounts of information about people, i.e., “big data.” Who should be allowed to collect such data, and what data should be collected? What rights do individuals have to privacy and anonymity? The complexity of these technologies also poses novel problems of governance and accountability. What kinds of explanations are people owed for how an opaque AI system treats them? How can we hold developers and deployers of opaque systems accountable for their behavior? This course explores ethical questions like these that are raised by contemporary artificial intelligence and data-driven technologies. Readings will be drawn from philosophy, computer science, and other related fields. The goal is to prepare students to engage in critical ethical reasoning as developers, users, and stakeholders of new technology.
Data Ethics
PHIL-2101, 3 credits
Taught by Ethics Lab Postdoctoral Fellow Kate Wojtkiewicz
Class meets Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:00pm–3:15pm in Ethics Lab (Healy 201)
Satisfies Georgetown Core requirement (Philosophy)
Satisfies new Tech, Ethics, & Society program “tech + ethics” elective requirement
CRN: 46502
We willingly share data about ourselves all the time---from apps we use for purchases to Ubers we take. Consider the amount of data you share intentionally in the course of one day. What happens to all that data? We are coming to understand that it paints a picture of individuals, communities and our world that is permanent, accessible, and can be shared, sold, manipulated, and combined for purposes far beyond the intentions behind our original “disclosures.” Do we care; should we? We also unwillingly share data every day. What happens to the record of that Uber ride you took? Who is aware of your google search history? Your purchases? Your income from your part time job? Your recent arrest on a minor charge? What should governments, parents, employers, be able to learn about you? Does Georgetown read your emails? Should they? In this course, we will explore the rapidly changing landscape of Data Ethics.
(un)Mapping Just Futures * New! *
UNXD-2125, 1 credit
Taught by Ethics Lab Assistant Professor Akshaya Narayanan
Class meets biweekly from January 18th–April 25th, Thursday, 2:00pm–3:40pm in Ethics Lab (Healy 201)
Part of The Red House’s Just Communities project
CRN: 46424
We are constantly shaping and being shaped by our environment, that is layered with built and natural systems. Packed into this are the layers of human interactions with and within these systems. This 1-credit course offered by Ethics Lab faculty seeks to unravel those systems hidden in plain sight.
Using exploratory design methods that center responsible play, reflection and curious awareness we will be building objective interpretative maps of every kind — sensory, participatory, colored with memory, intuition and embodied experiences to identify our roles in transitioning towards just environmental futures. Participants will learn to apply design-led-research methods along with basic drawing/collaging techniques (analog and digital) as a way to responsibly navigate complex environmental systems.