Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Ethics

This Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Ethics course provides background and hands-on experience with big data and artificial intelligence, the two key catalysts of the computational science revolution. Humanity leaves a significant digital footprint, with more than 99 percent of all mediated information in digital format and 98 percent of the world population using digital technology. In theory, this opens up hitherto unimagined possibilities for understanding and shaping society. In practice, the only way to process this deluge of data is to use the same digital tools that created it. Machine learning is the engine that extracts astonishing new knowledge from massive volumes of data.

Because a large portion of this data is about ourselves, utilizing algorithms to learn more about ourselves inevitably raises ethical concerns. As a result, you cannot end this course without discussing research ethics and some of the old and new lines computational social scientists must consider. As part of the hands-on labs, you'll utilize IBM Watson's artificial intelligence to extract people's personalities from their digital text traces, and you'll learn about the power and limitations of machine learning by instructing two Google teachable robots.

Level: beginner level

Price: free (Paid Certificate Available)

Duration: 4 weeks long, 12 hours worth of material

Link: coursera.org/learn/big-data-ai-ethics