BCAI Summer Institute

Artificial intelligence is a strange object: built from text and images, fluent in conversation, and yet nothing like a mind. The BCAI Summer Institute is a five-day intensive that asks what AI systems are, how they work, and how we should act with respect to them.

Our work moves through three connected questions. First, framing: what is an AI model, and what does a new technology do to the people and institutions that adopt it? Second, machinery: how do models turn data into results? Third, ethics: what should AI be used for, and who answers when it fails?

Participants will read closely, work hands-on with AI tools, and argue with one another about what they find. We will test claims about AI against its actual performance; build a simple neural network to see how inputs, weights, and thresholds work; and compare a careful human interpretation of a work of art with a machine-generated one.

The final part of the institute turns to responsibility. Drawing on cases from health care and automated decision-making, we will ask where accountability belongs when a system fails: with the person using it, the institution that adopted it, the company that built it, or the broader rules that allowed it to be deployed.

No technical or mathematics background is required. The institute is for students who want a practical understanding of AI and a disciplined way to decide when its use is warranted.