Advanced Topics in Information Studies: Political Economy of AI Supply Chains

AI hype is everywhere—from classrooms to courtrooms, boardrooms to borders, protestors to investors. In this course, we’ll take a “production view” to get past this hype and critically examine the infrastructure, capital, and labor that goes into building AI, and study how AI is transforming global politics, policy, and economies. We will learn to think critically about major political economic actors in AI—the state, universities, and Big Tech—and how AI affects war fighting, borders, policing, and the environment.

Over the semester, students will build towards a final project aligned with their ongoing research agenda by analyzing qualitative or quantitative data to support novel political economic analysis, and increase their work’s impact by situating it within live tech policy debates. Students will iteratively build towards this project via in-class reading reflections, discussions, and a mid-semester project plan. Out of class work will primarily consist of readings, preparing for an assigned day in which they lead discussion, and independent work towards the final project. The course will include select guest lectures and discussion with prominent thinkers in this field, helping build student's wider scholarly network.