Innovation Center Co-Lab F26: Politics and Aesthetics in the Age of AI

Description

The Dean of Faculty's office invites students to apply to this Fall ‘26 Innovation Co-Lab “Politics and Aesthetics in the Age of AI: Power, Ritual, and Resistance from Silicon Valley to your Smartphone". The Co-Lab is a semester-long opportunity where students take a set of three courses that combine mutually reinforcing academic and experiential learning experiences. All the instructors in the Co-Lab work together to coordinate syllabi and assignments and to provide students in the Lab with an integrated, interdisciplinary understanding of the topic.

For this Co-Lab, Professors Ashley Gorham, Anna Huff and Phil Klinkner will teach three connected courses in which students will examine contributions to the constitution of the technological police order and the forms of politics that resist it. For more information, please see the course descriptions below.

Experiential learning for this lab will include weekly or bi-weekly “rotations” with participation in lectures, workshops, and symposiums by leading experts or cultural “disruptors.” The cluster will also include site visits and field trips locally with a potential capstone field trip to Silicon Valley itself, to meet ethicists, AI industry experts, and others working at the fringes and the industry forefront of technological innovation and critique. Locally, we plan to partner with the Griffis Institute. Potential site visits in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area include Google AI, OpenAI, and the Internet Archive Data Center.

There are no prerequisites for these courses. The Co-Lab schedule is akin to an ordinary semester’s schedule. This means that student-athletes will be able to get to practice, and students can work out schedules for on-campus jobs.

You can find a description of the Co-Lab's courses below. If you have questions about the Co-Lab please email us at agorham@hamilton.edu or ngoodale@hamilton.edu. Please note that the Co- Lab will require several field trips and regular trips into the local community. 

DARTS/ART/MUSIC/THETR 240: Intermediate Media: Performance, Ritual, and Technology – T 9:00 - noon. This class will look at and engage in performance strategies in relation to digital technology, ritual, and the social, with a specific critical lens on the aesthetics and politics of Silicon Valley and the SF Bay Area. We will create collaborative and hybrid work at the intersections of performance, digital media, AI, and social practice and map out modes of ritual engagement within these intersections. We will explore “liveness” as a digital and/or embodied presence, while thinking critically about the dynamic evolution of, and politics behind digital tools, and their impact on history, consciousness, and cultural output.   This component of the cluster will require creative output, collaboration, and technological and social experimentation. Topics covered include surveillance, AI, magic, authorship and access, drone vision, data feminism, copyright issues, algorithmic bias, the fediverse, cyberpunk, and more. Anna Huff

GOVT 390W Politics of Silicon Valley WF 1:00-2:15. Silicon Valley’s vast economic and cultural power has made it increasingly important to American politics. For example, social media has become a major source of political information; tech billionaires are investing massive amounts of money in American elections and lobbying the government for favorable regulations; various thinkers and intellectuals from or associated with the tech industry are gaining prominence and influence in the broader culture; and, finally, the race for AI supremacy has become a key focus of government policy. This course will examine the distinctive politics of Silicon Valley and its increasing influence on American and global politics. Ashley Gorham and Phil Klinkner

GOVT/PHIL/PPOL 412 Politics of AI – WF 2:30-3:45. The course approaches the study of the politics of AI (artificial intelligence) by stepping back to offer a philosophical and historical framework for the development. After examining this intellectual genealogy of AI, students will take the lead in the seminar—selecting readings (in consultation with the instructor) for their chosen topic, which they will then present to the class. Topics include art and intellectual property, education, labor, policing, military, privacy, surveillance, political advertising and campaigning, bias and discrimination, e