AI: Pixels, Prompts, and Power

The course. An introduction to AI for students with no programming background, taken three ways: technically, critically, and creatively. The course runs from the origins of AI in the 1950s, through symbolic AI and neural networks, to the large models available today.

AI in the course. AI is the whole subject. Students learn what is happening when a language model generates text or an image model turns a prompt into a picture. They argue over ownership, bias, and regulation from concrete cases. They also practice prompting language and image models, learning where the tools fail and how to push them toward results that are their own.