🗓️ Week 01 - Introduction, Context & Key Concepts

2023/24 Winter Term

Author

Dr. Ghita Berrada

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.
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:

  1. Within your (randomly) assigned group (to be announced on Moodle/during the lecture), read the articles from the indicative reading list

  2. 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.

📟 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).