Lecture Slides are available here (to be updated weekly)

Week 1 (18 Sep): Introduction

• Information examination & credit points requirements
• Information on group work
• Defining “The Digital Revolution”

Week 2 (25 Sep): Technological Revolutions & Techno-Economic Paradigms

• plenary discussion of: Floridi, L. (2014). The 4th revolution: How the infosphere is reshaping human reality. Chapter 4: Self-Understanding: The Four Revolutions
• plenary discussion of: Perez, C. (2010). Technological revolutions and techno-economic paradigms. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 34(1), 185–202

Task: Take a look at the Timeline and browse through the web links. Answer the following question: What was the “Manchester Baby” and what was special about it?

Week 3 (02 Oct): Thomas Kuhn’s Theory of Scientific Revolutions

• plenary discussion of: Floridi, L. (2014). The 4th revolution: How the infosphere is reshaping human reality. Chapter 1: Time: Hyperhistory
• plenary discussion of: Kuhn, T. S. (1996/1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Introduction. A Role for History.
• Formation of working groups
• Designation of group moderators

Task: We have so far encountered three different ways of conceptualizing the digital revolution: Klaus Schwab’s notion of a fourth industrial revolution, Luciano Floridi’s forth revolution in human self-understanding and Carlota Perez’ neo-Schumpeterian approach based on the concept of socio-economic paradigms. Briefly describe the three approaches and highlight their differences.

Week 4 (09 Oct): Group Work

• Selection of Chapter Topics
• Literature Research

Task: Read the research article by Hilbert and López on “The World’s Technological Capacity to Store, Communicate, and Compute Information” published in Science in 2011. Describe in your own words what you think are the authors’ main claims and most important conclusions.

Week 5 (16 Oct): The History of Information Theory & Computer Technology

• plenary discussion of: Floridi, L. (2014). The 4th revolution : how the infosphere is reshaping human reality. Chapter 2: Space: Infosphere
• plenary discussion of: Gleick, J. (2011). The information a history, a theory, a flood. London: Fourth Estate. Chapter 7: Information Theory.

Task: Watch this short video. Then try to calculate the Shannon entropy of the word “INFOSPHERE” twice: once using equal probabilities for each letter and once using the following relative probabilities of letters in the English alphabet. Explain in your own words why the entropy is higher in one case and what this means. (Don’t hesitate to hand in the task even if you are not sure whether your answer is correct.)

a 8.2% ; b 1.5% ; c 2.8% ; d 4.3% ; e 12.7% ; f 2.2% ; g 2.0% ; h 6.1% ; i 7.0% ; j 0.2% ; k 0.8% ; l 4.0% ; m 2.4% ; n 6.7% ; o 7.5% ; p 1.9% ; q 0.1% ; r 6.0% ; s 6.3% ; t 9.1% ; u 2.8% ; v 1.0% ; w 2.4% ; x 0.2% ; y 2.0% ; z 0.1%.

 

Week 6 (23 Oct): The Basics of Modern Information Theory & Group Work

• Understanding the concept of Shannon Entropy
• plenary discussion of: Weaver, W. (1949). The Mathematics of Communication. Scientific American, 181(1), 11–15. (Claude Shannon’s original article can be found here.)
• Groups present written outline of group report

Task: In a recent TED talk, the historian Yuval Noah Harari claimed that “the greatest danger for liberal democracy is that the revolution in information technology will make dictatorships more efficient.” Do you think that the increasing use of A.I. and modern surveillance technologies by the Chinese government is a supporting instance for Harari’s claim? Or do you think that the actions of the Chinese government on the Chinese territory do not necessarily pose a threat to liberal democracies elsewhere? Justify your answer.

 Semester Break

 

Week 7 (13 Nov): Societal Challenges of Artificial Intelligence

• plenary discussion of: McCorduck, P. (2004). Machines who think: a personal inquiry into the history and prospects of artificial intelligence. Natick, Mass.: A.K. Peters. Chapter 13. Can a Made-Up Mind Be Moral?
• Watch AlphaGo
• At 1.30pm: Course evaluation by TAP team.

Week 8 (20 Nov): Digitalization and Democracy

• Q&A with Eva Schmidt (philosophy, University of Zurich) on ethical aspects of artificial intelligence
• plenary discussion of: Helbing, D., Frey, B. S., Gigerenzer, G., Hafen, E., Hagner, M., Hofstetter, Y., … Zwitter, A. (2019). Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence? In D. Helbing (Ed.), Towards Digital Enlightenment: Essays on the Dark and Light Sides of the Digital Revolution (pp. 73–98). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
• (complementary reading: Floridi, L. (2014). The 4th revolution : how the infosphere is reshaping human reality. Chapter 8: Politics)

Week 9 (27 Nov): Big Data Technologies in Social Science

• Bansak, K., Ferwerda, J., Hainmueller, J., Dillon, A., Hangartner, D., Lawrence, D., & Weinstein, J. (2018). Improving refugee integration through data-driven algorithmic assignment. Science, 359(6373), 325-329. (Supplementary materials available here.)
• Bryan Lufkin. (Jan 2018). The algorithm that could help tackle the refugee crisis. BBC Capital, 18 Jan 2018.
  

Week 10 (04 Dec): Digital Warfare

• plenary discussion of: Orend, B. (2014). Fog in the Fifth Dimension: The Ethics of Cyber-War. In: Floridi, L., & Taddeo, M. (2014). The ethics of information warfare. Cham; Heidelberg; New York: Springer.
• Watch Zero Days

Week 11 (11 Dec): Group Presentations

• Q&A with Dominik Hangartner (Public Policy, ETH Zurich) on Big Data Technologies in Social Science
• Presentations of group reports: Groups 1 & 2

Week 12 (18 Dec): Group Presentations

• Presentations of group reports: Groups 3 & 4