CIVILIZATION MEETS AI: HOW SHOULD HUMANITY RELATE TO ADVANCED AI?

A pilot curriculum of six Socratic seminars for educators and other nontechnical learners.

Project Details

It is fair to say that AI is creating ripples and controversy the world over. It seems no one is really sure exactly how to deal with it, and in fact that’s as it should be. If AI continues to grow the way we are encouraging it to grow, it could become as seminal an event as the Agricultural Revolution. Civilization Meets AI is a Socratic curriculum specifically designed to help educators and other nontechnical learners address some of the larger questions that will arise from our civilization-wide encounter with AI. This pilot course includes six seminars that trace multiple topics facing our relationship with AI, our similarities and differences, and how we might adjust our dealings with AI as it evolves.

The participants will have six classes, each 2.5 hours long. First, the facilitator will introduce the topic of the day, and the questions up for discussion for that session. Second, the participants will have ten minutes to identify and note their own thoughts about the topic. Third, the class will break into small discussion groups. Then a brief break. When they reconvene, the facilitator will engage them all in Socratic dialogue about the topic in general and their small group conclusions in particular. Fifth, the facilitator will synthesize the conversation, possibly including new ideas that bear on the issue. Finally, the participants will reflect on the issues raised and their reactions to them.

The first topic is “Why do some people fear AI?” The final topic is “What happens if we create another civilization?” AI may never become sentient, but both the short-term and long-term consequences of increasingly advanced AI on human civilization are worth discussing at the highest level. By the end of this course, the participants will be able to contribute meaningfully to a conversation on that level.

Theory of Impact

“Clarity of thought before rashness of action” is the guiding principle behind Civilization Meets AI. Most societies are at the point right now where they are actively debating if, when, and how they should regulate AI. Most of us don’t really understand how AI works and that’s as true of government officials as it is of anybody else. We must understand AI in order to make wise decisions about it.

The point of this project is to remove AI as a potentially existential threat. A six-seminar curriculum cannot accomplish that. What it can do is improve our ability to defuse that threat wisely. It is our nature to fear what we don’t understand, and advanced AI is puzzling humanity as a whole. This project provides clear conceptual frameworks for understanding the misalignment between human and AI decision-making. With better understanding of these differences comes more informed discussions, which in turn produce better judgment about how to bridge those differences, leading to wiser educational, organizational, and public decisions about AI.

If this project succeeds, the participants return to their roles as educators or policy advisors and engage their students, communities, and constituents in serious conversations about AI and its role in society. Then those constituents engage their colleagues, and so on. Ideally, this would become a national, even global conversation. People should discuss this in living rooms and boardrooms and sidewalk cafés.

People

Walter Pentland

Team Member

Grants Received– no grants recorded

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Funding Asks

grantmaking.ai Launch Round

Applied

Minimum

$12,000

Ideal

$15,000

How the money will be spent

Category

Estimated Cost

Curriculum development & research

$3,500

Facilitator compensation (planning + six seminars + debriefs)

$2,500

Meeting room rental (six sessions)

$1,000

Participant materials, printing, supplies

$500

Video recording / basic production

$1,500

Graphic design & visual assets

$500

Editing / transcription / accessibility

$500

Participant refreshments & incidental expenses

$500

Evaluation, revisions, and Version 2 preparation

$1,000

Contingency

$1,000

Total

$12,000

If funded at $15,000

· The additional funding would be used for:

· Higher-quality professional filming

· Better editing and graphics

· Improved facilitator guide

· Expanded participant workbook

· Additional evaluation and refinement

· More polished Version 2 curriculum

Discussion

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