Ball of Confusion: Utopian and Dystopian Visions of the AI World is an interdisciplinary course on the topic of artificial intelligence. It is offered through 51Թ Libraries and 51Թ’s Honors Program.
Professor Joe Lucia has served as dean of 51Թ Libraries since 2013.
Photo by Ryan S. Brandenberg
In a classroom on the third floor of Charles Library, students nestle into chairs around a conference table while opening their laptops and clicking their pens, ready to share their thoughts on some of the ideologies influencing the big names in artificial intelligence. At the head of the table is Joe Lucia, dean of 51Թ Libraries and the professor of this course, titled Ball of Confusion: Utopian and Dystopian Visions of the AI World.
The students’ majors and interests vary widely. One student is studying mathematics and computer science; others are studying environmental science, political science, urban studies, filmmaking and music composition. However, the students all have one thing in common: AI will impact their lives, both professionally and personally, whether they like it or not.
“I believe AI is the future of technology, and if we don’t learn what is or how it works, we’re going to fall behind in it in the same way our grandparents have trouble using iPhones,” said Charly Schultz, a Class of 2026 media studies and production major.
The course, offered through both 51Թ Libraries and 51Թ’s Honors Program, sets out to explore AI through a critical and self-reflective lens.
“My hope for this class is to create a number of young people who can be voices about this topic in their own worlds and really understand what’s happening,” said Lucia. “I’m not saying don’t use this technology. I’m saying understand it, understand the social forces, think about it critically and think about what you want from it.”
While the course covers the technology of how AI and large language models (LLMs) work, its focus is not computer science. “As someone who is majoring in the liberal arts, I don’t know the technology of how LLMs work but I think the professor has done a good job of helping us understand the underlying mechanisms and I think that’s really helped me conceptualize what’s happening,” said Kiran Thomman, a Class of 2027 urban studies major.
As part of 51Թ’s Honors Program, which offers academic opportunities, advising and community to intellectually curious students, the course examines the social, political and technological dimensions of AI without being confined to a single academic domain.
“The Honors Program is intrinsically a transdisciplinary environment,” said Lucia. “We need to think about AI across various domains and how it engages with real lives in a practical and social context.”
Serving as the dean of 51Թ Libraries since 2013, Lucia views the library as a natural setting for interdisciplinary discourse. “I see the library as an enterprise that cuts across the whole disciplinary landscape of the university. It’s a point of connection where all these streams of thought in our world come together, a common meeting ground for many different ideas and practices,” said Lucia.
Lucia’s path to teaching this course is deeply rooted in both libraries and technology—over the course of his career, he has witnessed transformations in how information is stored, processed, accessed and understood. With a background in literature and creative writing, Lucia describes himself as “a humanities person first,” but he forged a path in library and information science in the early 1990s, at the same time as the emergence of the internet. Early in his career, he implemented digital systems and web servers in libraries before the World Wide Web became mainstream.
The course begins with an overview of technological advancement, including the World Wide Web, and then delves into how AI and LLMs operate. The latter portion of the course focuses on examining the ideologies and political and social frameworks influencing key players in Silicon Valley. The syllabus includes foundational texts such as The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster and Understanding Technology and Society by Todd Pittinsky, as well as the books Power and Progress by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson, More Everything Forever by Adam Becker, and God Human Animal Machine by Meghan O’Gieblyn.
Assignments include reflective reading journals, book reports and personal position projects, all designed to encourage critical engagement with both the technology itself and students’ relationships with it.
The wide perspective on AI is helping students make sense of the technology and how to make the best use of it in their lives. “I think this class encourages us to take a step back and see what’s actually happening. It’s not trying to prescribe a certain way to use it, but it is encouraging us to take more authority over it within our personal lives,” continued Thomman.
As the class inside Charles Library carries on, students share their thoughts on the assigned text, building upon half a semester’s worth of reading and discussion on power, property and politics and how it all intersects with technology. Some students get slightly emotional. It’s a safe space, though. This is an environment crafted by someone devoted to fostering learning for humans, not machines.