<p>Lecture, four hours; outside study, eight hours. Preparation: a basic understanding of artificial intelligence and natural language processing concepts is encouraged. Large language models (LLMs) are becoming ubiquitous. They are used in many real-world applications, ranging from content moderation and online advertisement to health care. Given their increasing role in what people see, how they think, and what is publicly known about them, it is critical to consider the ethical ramifications of deploying LLM-based systems. Study offers a lens on historical and current computational ethics problems in natural language processing (NLP). Reading and discussion of literature about how large-scale language modeling is impacting domains such as privacy, health care, and political science. Discussions are accompanied by guest lectures from domain experts. In group projects students develop critical thinking and problem-solving through hands-on data curation and writing short perspective pieces on a future AI policy framework to mitigate ethical risks observed from the literature review. Letter grading.</p>

Computer Science

Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science

COM SCI 260E - Computational Ethics and Large Language Models

Computational Ethics and Large Language Models

Students will review common evaluation practices and established auditing frameworks (e.g.SMACTR) for ensuring AI safety. They will explore how these approaches apply to novel scenarios and learn to identify potential limitations.

Students will learn how to critically evaluate data collection practices, with attention to risks, privacy violations, embedded societal biases, and their evaluation processes. Students will get hands-on experience with data challenges (e.g., label subjectivity) through small group data curation and coding assignments.

Students will learn how to develop and pitch their own AI governance framework in whitepapers presented at the end of the quarter. This will strengthen students’ critical thinking and scientific communication skills.

Students will investigate the ethical implications of large language models (LLMs) and how they are impacting various sectors and aspects of society (e.g. healthcare).

General Catalog

Computational Ethics and Large Language Models

COM SCI 260E

4 units