Engaging with AI – Course Website

COURSE RESOURCES

Picking a Model – Ethan Mollick

COURSE READING LIST

I suggest the following books to explore various AI topics in greater depth. I will be adding to this list before our first class and likely updating it as our discussions progress.

One particularly useful way to discover new reading material is to ask AI itself for book suggestions. The key is to be specific—tell the AI exactly what aspects of AI interest you most. I’ve also found this technique helpful when I come across an author I enjoy and want to find similar books by other writers.

1. Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick

Theme: A hands-on guide to working alongside AI tools. Mollick encourages readers to treat AI as a collaborator rather than a replacement, showing how tools like ChatGPT can amplify creativity, productivity, and learning when approached with curiosity and a spirit of experimentation.

2. Future Tense: How We Made Artificial Intelligence – and How It Will Change Everything by Martha Brockenbrough

Theme: An accessible history of AI aimed at teens but enlightening for all. Brockenbrough explores the science, philosophy, and ethics behind AI development, while raising questions about its role in society, power, and fairness—especially for the next generation.

3. The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman

Theme: A stark warning from a tech insider about the risks posed by rapidly advancing AI and biotech. Suleyman argues that without proactive containment, these technologies will outpace our ability to control them—posing existential threats to governance, employment, and global stability.

4. Artificial Intelligence: A Guide for Thinking Humans by Melanie Mitchell

Theme: A thoughtful and skeptical examination of what AI can and can’t do. Mitchell demystifies how AI works, critiques media hype, and highlights the human intelligence still needed to guide it. She stresses that current AI lacks true understanding—and may never replicate human cognition fully.

5. These Strange New Minds by Christopher Summerfield

Theme: A broad overview of AI drawing on philosophical concepts of intelligence and application to current models. Excellent examples of issues and techniques. Challenges concepts of what we may thinks sets us apart as human beings.