An open, forkable 10-section liberal arts curriculum on AI — covering what AI is, seven schools of thought, seven futures, and what it means for education, work, and culture.
This is an evolving course reflecting on the impact of AI to education generally and the liberal arts specifically. It's designed as a ten-section guide to what AI is, what it can and can't do, how it may transform society, and what it means for human thought, work, and culture. I welcome contributions and encourage you to fork and make it your own.
Built for liberal arts educators and their students. Live at aiandhumanity.netlify.app.
This is a curriculum, not a textbook — it takes positions and invites students to challenge them. Ten sections cover:
- What AI actually is today, and what it does and doesn't do well
- Seven schools of thought on where it's heading (from Utopians to Deflationists)
- Seven possible futures (Abundance, Displacement, Concentration, and four others)
- Philosophy of mind — the hard problems AI forces us to confront
- Economic and political stakes — who gains, who loses, who governs
- What this means for liberal arts education and for students specifically
Each section ends with discussion questions for seminar use and prompts for using AI itself to probe the material.
The goal of open sourcing this is not to maintain one canonical curriculum but to offer a starting point that educators can fork, adapt, and teach in their own voice. Different institutions, different student bodies, different emphases — take what works, change what doesn't, and share what you learn.
If you fork this for your course, open a Discussion and tell us about it. What worked? What did your students push back on? What did you add?
git clone https://github.com/bster/ai-future.git
cd ai-future/understanding-ai
npm install
npm run devOpen http://localhost:5173.
Production build:
npm run build # outputs to understanding-ai/dist/Deploy: The site is a static bundle — drop dist/ anywhere that serves HTML. The included netlify.toml configures a one-click Netlify deploy from your own fork.
understanding-ai/ Vite + React SPA
src/
App.jsx Routing shell — PAGES map + hash-based routing
design.js Design tokens and style objects
data/
nav.js Navigation groups and section metadata
camps.js Seven schools of thought (Utopians, Doomers, etc.)
futures.js Seven AI outcome scenarios
explore.js AI apps and classroom prompts
components/
Shared.jsx Ref, Video, DQ, TryIt, SectionBadge, Arrows, etc.
Nav.jsx Sticky nav, mobile hamburger, progress bar
pages/ One file per section — content lives here
netlify.toml Static deploy configuration
Routing is hash-based — no server config needed. URLs: /#what, /#beliefs, /#futures, etc.
See CONTRIBUTING.md. Short version:
- Broken links, new primary sources, factual corrections → open an issue or PR
- Framing debates, classroom reports, fork announcements → Discussions
- Rewrites and restructuring → fork it
Code (components, build tooling): MIT
Content (text, arguments, framing): CC BY 4.0 — Ben Stern