Living with AI

In this course we will review key developments in the history of AI and explore how it has evolved from product features in everyday services such as Amazon, Netflix, Spotify or Facebook, to anthropomorphic assistants and autonomous agents. We will take a deep dive into a variety of case studies to explain how reinforcement learning and large language models simulate intelligence. Students will learn how to apply software product development processes to generate their own AI-powered product ideas and experiment their way to "product market fit". We will explore a variety of philosophical and psychological questions along the way such as "What is AGI and how is it different from human intelligence? Does AI have intuition? Is AGI 'artificial' or just 'non-human'? Where should we leverage AI and where and when should we avoid it? Students will also review and discuss how AI-powered products have been imagined in modern films e.g. Her (2017), Ex Machina (2014), After Yang (2021) and Robot & Frank (2012), and their predicted effect on humanity.



Daren Gill is currently Senior Director of Product at Google focused on leveraging AI in the Search experience. He has been building ML-powered consumer software products for over 20 years at big tech companies, including Amazon, Spotify, and Google, as well as several startups. Daren is on the board of directors for Yobe, Inc., and is an advisor to Slang.ai. Daren has a J.D. and a B.A. from the University of Connecticut, and currently splits time between New York City and Block Island, RI.