Description
A new age has arrived. AI is sufficiently advanced to learn our opinions and what we care about, and craft text and media to influence our thoughts and opinions. It is likely that AI will soon be better able to influence us than other people. Individuals and organizations equipped with AI are now able to exert influence at a previously inconceivable scale, and they will become more successful at it over time. In this course, we will combine concepts from psychology, data science, and network science to describe how social influence can be exerted. We will consider how our thoughts are influenced by our social networks, and how our biases work. We will explore how an individual's opinions impact social networks, and how the collective opinions of entire networks can change under the right conditions. You will see how statistical analysis can be manipulated and how AI can be used for deception. Ultimately, you will learn how to exert large scale social influence, using AI for leverage. This is not a course for beginners. Basic concepts in data science will not be explained. This is an interdisciplinary course that will challenge you to think for yourself. You will learn about powerful techniques and you will need to decide how to manage them ethically and morally.
