Artificial Intelligence, Entrepreneurship and Society in the 21st Century and Beyond

Technical developments in artificial intelligence (AI) have opened up new opportunities for entrepreneurship, as well as raised profound longer term questions about how human societal and economic systems may be re­organized to accommodate the rise of intelligent machines. In this course, closely co­taught by a Stanford professor and a leading Silicon Valley venture capitalist, we will examine the current state of the art capabilities of existing artificial intelligence systems, as well as economic challenges and opportunities in early stage startups and large companies that could leverage AI. We will focus on gaps between business needs and current technical capabilities to identify high impact directions for the development of future AI technology. Simultaneously, we will explore the longer term societal impact of AI driven by inexorable trends in technology and entrepreneurship. The course includes guest lectures from leading technologists and entrepreneurs who employ AI in a variety of fields, including healthcare, education, self­driving cars, computer security, natural language interfaces, computer vision systems, and hardware acceleration.