Welcome to the course! In this module, we will begin with an overview of the Navigating Disruption series and the goals of this first course, Generative AI: Forecasting Disruption. After reflecting on our experiences with generative AI to date, we’ll work to situate generative AI as a disruptive technology by drawing parallels to past technological advances. Let’s get started!

In this module, we will focus in more detail on the affordances of AI. We will begin by differentiating various type of AI and examining the ways in which large language models operate. We’ll move on from there to explore how AI can generate visuals and consider the implications of how real those visuals appear in comparison to traditional visual media. Lastly, we’ll spend some time working to better understand the process of prompt engineering in an effort to optimize our own interactions with AI.

In this module, we will focus on the limitations of AI. These limitations are rooted in the ways AI learns and generates outputs, so we’ll first examine these two processes in detail. We’ll close the course by evaluating AI’s ability to generate outputs to achieve a particular goal.