First-year RIT students explore how artificial intelligence and emerging technologies are reshaping society and everyday life

Rochester, New York – As artificial intelligence becomes a bigger part of everyday life, Rochester Institute of Technology is giving its newest students an opportunity to look beyond the technology itself and examine how it can change communities, institutions and the way people live.

RIT has introduced two pilot courses designed to help first-year students think carefully about the growing relationship between technology and society. Rather than focusing only on how AI and other emerging tools work, the courses ask students to consider what happens when those tools are introduced into real-world settings and how human choices influence the technologies that are created.

The two courses, Interdisciplinary Explorations of Human Problems and Science, Technology, and Values, are being offered through RIT’s College of Liberal Arts. They are based in the Department of Criminal Justice and the Department of Science, Technology, and Society, respectively.

Although both courses have a shared goal, they approach emerging technology from different academic perspectives. The idea is to help students understand that AI is not simply a computer science issue. Its effects can be felt in areas ranging from criminal justice and public policy to health, identity, economics and everyday social life.

The pilot courses are the first of several planned offerings that will introduce first-year students to questions surrounding technology and society. RIT hopes the approach will encourage students to examine both the potential benefits and possible consequences of technologies that are developing at a rapid pace.

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Associate Professor Kaitlin Stack Whitney is teaching the Science, Technology, and Society version of the course. Irshad Altheimer, the Ellen M. Granberg Endowed Professor, is teaching the criminal justice-based course and will co-teach it with Ashique KhudaBukhsh, an assistant professor in RIT’s Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences.

Stack Whitney said her department was a natural place to test a course centered on the relationship between technology and people.

“Science and technology studies is all about how people shape technology, and how technology effects change. That bi-directional understanding and approach is key, it’s not one or the other,” she explained.

That two-way relationship is at the heart of the course Science, Technology, and Values. Students will examine technologies that are already changing daily life, including social media, artificial intelligence, surveillance systems and medical innovations.

The class will look at how these tools can influence communities, power, identity and opportunity. At the same time, students will consider the other side of the relationship — how people and society influence which technologies are developed, how they are used and who ultimately benefits from them.

Culture, politics, economics and human values all play a role in those decisions, according to the course’s approach. Students are therefore encouraged to ask questions that go beyond whether a particular technology is useful or efficient.

“Technologies aren’t neutral. They reflect the goals and visions that folks have for both the present and the world they want to make,” she said. “We can help students understand how automation has changed life in the past and help them think critically about claims being made with certainty about the future.”

Stack Whitney already has experience teaching students about AI and society. RIT recently introduced an immersion, minor and dedicated course focused on Artificial Intelligence in Society, and she was involved in developing those offerings. She has taught the dedicated course three times since it was introduced.

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The new pilot gives students an earlier opportunity to explore similar questions, while also connecting the discussion to their broader college experience.

The second pilot course takes a more specific look at artificial intelligence through the criminal justice system. Altheimer said his own experience seeing AI tools affect the justice system helped spark his interest in developing the course.

For students in Interdisciplinary Explorations of Human Problems, the discussion will center on how AI is being used at different stages of the criminal justice process. That includes areas connected to arrest, conviction and incarceration.

The course will not simply assume that the introduction of AI automatically improves the justice system. Instead, students will be asked to consider whether these tools actually produce better outcomes and whether they can introduce new problems or create a false sense of fairness.

“Justice is a bedrock of a democratic society. How we use AI in the criminal justice system reflects our own ethics and values,” he said.

Altheimer said students need to be able to examine claims about AI carefully rather than accepting the technology as inherently fair or effective.

“Particular attention will be paid to whether AI tools actually make our system better, or if they just provide the illusion of justice,” said Altheimer. “Our students need to be equipped with the analytical tools that can help them evaluate this technology and its impact on society.”

The courses come at a time when AI systems are becoming increasingly common in workplaces and in everyday activities. RIT’s approach reflects the idea that students entering a technology-focused university need more than technical knowledge. They also need to understand the social questions that can follow new inventions.

The pilot program is expected to grow beyond its first courses. In future semesters, faculty members throughout the College of Liberal Arts will have the opportunity to develop and teach their own discipline-specific courses examining emerging technologies.

The lessons learned from the pilot courses are also expected to contribute to discussions about RIT’s General Education framework. Proposed revisions to that framework are currently going through the vetting and approval process.

The university’s broader academic offerings already include several programs focused on artificial intelligence. RIT recently introduced a bachelor’s degree in AI, while a master’s degree in AI has been offered since 2023.

RIT is also planning an AI institute, with a target launch in 2027. The institute is expected to support AI education and research while promoting responsible applications of the technology across different fields.

That larger effort reflects the university’s interest in preparing students not only to build and use emerging technologies, but also to question how those technologies affect people.
For first-year students taking part in the new pilot courses, the discussion begins with a basic but increasingly important idea: technology does not develop separately from society. People make choices about what gets built, how it is used and what problems it is meant to solve.

By placing those questions in the classroom early in a student’s college career, RIT is giving students a chance to examine AI from several angles before they enter a workforce that is likely to be shaped by it.

The courses also leave room for uncertainty, an important part of any discussion about rapidly developing technology. Instead of trying to predict exactly what AI will look like years from now, students are being encouraged to study what is happening now, learn from previous technological changes and develop the ability to evaluate new claims as they emerge.

For RIT, the goal is not simply to produce students who understand artificial intelligence. It is to help create graduates who can think critically about where technology fits into society, who it serves and what responsibilities come with using it.