REL 296
A summer school course for the skeptically-minded, staking our human claim on the future in the age of AI.
Where does the human sit when the tool is everywhere?
Arts and humanities first? You may feel pressure to become an “AI person,” with skepticism framed as a lack of vision. We start elsewhere. We take AI seriously as a force reshaping creativity, value, and identity: to read the landscape and stand with integrity, not to cheerlead.
We trace how models change the form of good work in design, film, music, and writing. Tool versus replacement is not only technical: it is relational and metaphysical. When output is cheap, discernment, revision, and taste become more precious.
“I wanted takes on AI that weren't all ‘this is the future.’ Understanding the human place in all of it, the tension, the metaphysics, helped more than learning the tech for its own sake. It helped me see my own work again.”
REL 296 010 · CRN 21576
Artificial Intelligence and the Making of Metaphysics