🗓️ Week 01 - Introduction, Context & Key Concepts

2023/24 Autumn Term

Author

In this first week, we will cover what you can expect to learn from this course and the course logistics: all you need to know about the structure of the lectures, classes, assessments, and how we will interact throughout this course.

We will also cover some of the basics: what do we mean by data science, and what tools will you need to use during this course?

👨‍🏫 Lecture Slides

Either click on the slide area below or click here to view it in fullscreen. Use your keypad to navigate the slides.

🎥 Looking for lecture recordings? You can only find those on Moodle.

References used in the lecture slides this week

Davenport, Thomas. 2020. “Beyond Unicorns: Educating, Classifying, and Certifying Business Data Scientists.” Harvard Data Science Review 2 (2). https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.55546b4a.

Fischer-Baum, Reuben. 2017. “What ‘Tech World’ Did You Grow up In?” Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/entertainment/tech-generations/.

Grierson, Jamie. 2023. “Photographer Admits Prize-Winning Image Was AI-Generated.” The Guardian. Retrieved from Https://Www. Theguardian. Com/Technology/2023/Apr/17/Photographer-Admits-Prize-Winning-Image-Was-Ai-Generated.

Kelly, Jack. 2023. “Goldman Sachs Predicts 300 Million Jobs Will Be Lost or Degraded by Artificial Intelligence.” Forbes. Accessed 16 Apr.

Naughton, John. 2023. “Can AI-Generated Art Be Copyrighted? A US Judge Says Not, but It’s Just a Matter of Time.” The Observer. Retrieved from Https://Www.theguardian.com/Commentisfree/2023/Aug/26/Ai-Generated-Art-Copyright-Law-Recent-Entrance-Paradise-Creativity-Machine.

Roser, Max, Hannah Ritchie, and Edouard Mathieu. 2023. “Technological Change.” Our World in Data.

Sample, Ian. 2023. “ChatGPT: What Can the Extraordinary Artificial Intelligence Chatbot Do?” The Guardian, January. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/13/chatgpt-explainer-what-can-artificial-intelligence-chatbot-do-ai.

Schutt, Rachel, and Cathy O’Neil. 2013. Doing Data Science. First edition. Beijing ; Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/londonschoolecons/detail.action?docID=1465965.

Shah, Chirag. 2020. A Hands-on Introduction to Data Science. Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. https://librarysearch.lse.ac.uk/permalink/f/1n2k4al/TN_cdi_askewsholts_vlebooks_9781108673907.

Taylor, Luke. 2023. “Colombian Judge Says He Used ChatGPT in Ruling.” The Guardian 2. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/feb/03/colombia-judge-chatgpt-ruling.

Weale, Sally. 2023. “Lecturers Urged to Review Assessments in UK Amid Concerns over New AI Tool.” The Guardian, January. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/13/end-of-the-essay-uk-lecturers-assessments-chatgpt-concerns-ai.

Williams, Zoe. 2023. “Interview: ’AI Isn’t a Threat’ – Boris Eldagsen, Whose Fake Photo Duped the Sony Judges, Hits Back.” The Guardian. Retrieved from Https://Www.theguardian.com/Artanddesign/2023/Apr/18/Ai-Threat-Boris-Eldagsen-Fake-Photo-Duped-Sony-Judges-Hits-Back.

Yong, Ed. 2018. “A Popular Algorithm Is No Better at Predicting Crimes Than Random People.” The Atlantic. Retrieved from Https://Www.theatlantic.com/Technology/Archive/2018/01/Equivant-Compas-Algorithm/550646/.

✍️ Coursework

This week, you have two tasks to prepare for the week’s class:

Within your (randomly) assigned group, read the articles from the indicative reading list
Respond to the following questions about the readings:
1. What is personal data?
2. What is the “quantified self”?
3. What is the main purpose/goal of the “quantified self”?
4. What do you think about this notion of “quantified self”?

Be prepared to share your answers with the rest of the class.

📚 Recommended Reading

Check the end of slides for the list of references cited in the lecture.
Check the 📔 Syllabus for this week’s complete list of indicative and recommended readings.

📟 Communication

Post your reflections, questions, and links on Slack (depending on your purpose, use either of the #general, #help-classes or #help-lectures channels - you might also want to use the #interesting-articles channel).