This semester we’ll build a collaborative public website about moments when new technologies disrupted how people create, share, and trust information.
Throughout history, new technologies have triggered waves of excitement, anxiety, fear, and speculation. When printing appeared in Europe, critics worried about a flood of bad books. When telegraphs connected cities, people feared the rapid spread of rumors. When radio emerged, commentators warned that mass media could manipulate entire populations.
Today, similar arguments appear in debates about artificial intelligence.
This project asks you to investigate these earlier moments of technological disruption to information flows. By studying how people reacted to past technologies, we can better understand the debates surrounding AI today.
Rather than writing isolated essays that disappear after the semester ends, we will build a collaborative website together. Each student will contribute a research-based case study examining one historical technological rupture.
Individually, each project will be small, researched and written with a lot of AI help, but guided by sound research practices.
Collectively, the website will become a resource that shows how societies repeatedly struggle to understand new technologies. By examining earlier moments of technological disruption, we can better understand these debates.
History does not provide simple answers, but it can help us ask better questions.
This assignment is designed to help you learn three things simultaneously:
You will begin with (probably) very little knowledge about your assigned technology. Using both AI tools and traditional research methods, you will learn how to quickly orient yourself to a new historical period, culture, society, and technology.
AI tools are very good at helping people brainstorm ideas, summarize topics, refine writing. But they are also unreliable when it comes to historical evidence and sources. For this project, AI should be treated as a research assistant, not an authority. You will use AI to help explore your topic, but you must verify its claims using real sources.
Each student will investigate one technological disruption. When assembled together, the projects will reveal patterns across centuries of technological change.
By the end of the semester, the website should help readers see how debates about technology often repeat similar themes.
A rupture is a moment when a new technology changes how information is produced, communicated, or trusted.
Possible examples include:
Your task is not simply to describe the technology, but to examine how people reacted to it when it first appeared.
Each student will write a short public-facing essay that becomes a page on our class website.
Your page should include:
Explain what the technology is and when it emerged.
Why did people believe this technology might change society?
What did people at the time say about this technology?
Were they excited? Concerned? Confused?
Include at least one historical primary source showing how people reacted.
Did the predictions about the technology turn out to be correct?
Did it reshape society in the ways people expected?
Finally, reflect briefly on how this historical example might help us think about current debates about artificial intelligence.
Although AI tools can help you explore your topic, your final project must be grounded in real research that you have verified. You will gather trusted sources and produce a bibliography of those sources.
Your goal is not to produce original historical scholarship, but to demonstrate sound research methodology.
AI tools can be extremely helpful for:
However, AI tools often invent sources or misrepresent historical evidence.
Because of this, you should always:
At the end of your essay, you will include a short section explaining how you used AI during your research and writing process.
Part of this project asks you to reflect on the limits of AI-assisted research.
For example:
Your reflection should consider both the benefits and limitations of AI as a research tool.
May 8 (the last day of finals)
Coursework is frustrating and virtually impossible to do well when you’re not sure what to do or how to do it. Please reach out if something’s not clear!