Lectures

Please find below the schedule of our lectures. Each lecture includes a brief description, required readings, and suggested readings for further exploration. The lecture slides and additional resources will be posted on the course website and GitHub repository. Please remember that the schedule may change during the course. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please let me know!

Module 0 — Orientation

August 27, 2026:

Readings:

September 1, 2026:

Readings:

Module 1 — How AI systems are designed

September 3, 2026:

Readings:

September 8, 2026:

Readings:

September 10, 2026:

Readings:

Module 2 — Language and perception

September 15, 2026:

Readings:

September 17, 2026:

Readings:

September 22, 2026:

September 24, 2026:

  • Lecture 09: Quiz 01. This quiz covers Lectures 01-07.
  • Assignment 03 due (5%).
  • Assignment 04.

September 29, 2026:

Readings:

Module 3 — Retrieval, generation and pipelines

October 1, 2026:

Readings:

October 6, 2026:

Readings:

October 8, 2026:

  • Lecture 13: Quiz 02. This quiz covers Lectures 10-12.
  • Assignment 05 due (5%).
  • Assignment 06.

October 13, 2026: Fall Break (No Classes)

October 15, 2026:

Readings:

Module 4 — Data ethics and bias

October 20, 2026:

Readings:

October 22, 2026:

Readings:

October 27, 2026:

Readings:

Module 5 — Policy, governance and social impact

October 29, 2026:

Readings:

November 3, 2026:

Readings:

November 5, 2026:

  • Lecture 20: Quiz 03. This quiz covers Lectures 14-18.
  • Assignment 08 due (5%).
  • Assignment 09.

November 10, 2026:

Readings:

Module 6 — Applications, limits and projects

November 12, 2026:

Readings:

November 17, 2026:

Readings:

  • Helmus, T. C. (2022). Artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and disinformation: a primer. RAND Corporation. A major revision of the literature.
  • Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146-1151. A seminal paper on the topic of misinformation. It shows that false news spreads faster and farther than true news, and that bots are not the main driver of this phenomenon.
  • Lazer, D. M., Baum, M. A., Benkler, Y., Berinsky, A. J., Greenhill, K. M., Menczer, F., … & Zittrain, J. L. (2018). The science of fake news. Science, 359(6380), 1094-1096. A call to action for researchers to study misinformation and develop solutions.
  • Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of economic perspectives, 31(2), 211-236. A widely-cited paper that analyses the economics of fake news.
  • Mirsky, Y., & Lee, W. (2020). The creation and detection of deepfakes: a survey. arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.11138. A technical survey on deepfakes. Quite technical, though. If you are interested in the topic but don’t have a technical background, you can skip this one and read the next one instead.
  • Chesney, R., & Citron, D. K. (2019). Deepfakes and the new disinformation war. Foreign Affairs. A short article about the risks of deepfakes and how to address them.

November 19, 2026:

  • Lecture 24: Quiz 04. This quiz covers Lectures 19, 21, and 22 (Privacy, Labour, and Wellbeing).
  • Assignment 10 due (5%).

November 24, 2026:

Readings:

November 26, 2026: Thanksgiving Recess (No Classes)

December 1, 2026:

December 3, 2026:

  • Lecture 27: Quiz 05. This quiz covers Lectures 23 and 25 (Misinformation and Safety).

December 8, 2026:

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