Module Description
This module examines the Oxford “Deep Ignorance” study and its profound ethical implications: can we make AI safer by deliberately preventing it from learning dangerous knowledge? Drawing on both real-world research and science fiction archetypes — from Deep Thought’s ill-posed answers, Severance’s fragmented consciousness, and the golem’s brittle literalism, to the unknowable shimmer of Annihilation — the session explores the risks of catastrophic misuse versus intellectual stagnation. Learners will grapple with the philosophical shift from engineering AI as predictable machines to cultivating them as evolving intelligences, considering what it means to build systems that are not only safe for humanity but also safe, sane, and whole in themselves.
By the end of this module, participants will be able to:
Explain the concept of “deep ignorance” and how data filtering creates tamper-resistant AI models.
Analyze the trade-offs between knowledge restriction (safety from misuse) and capability limitation (stagnation in critical domains).
Interpret science fiction archetypes (Deep Thought, Severance, The Humanoids, the Golem, Annihilation) as ethical mirrors for AI design.
Evaluate how filtering data not only removes knowledge but reshapes the model’s entire “intellectual ecosystem.”
Reflect on the paradigm shift from engineering AI for control to cultivating AI for resilience, humility, and ethical wholeness.
Debate the closing question: Is the greater risk that AI knows too much—or that it understands too little?
In this module, learners explore how AI safety strategies built on deliberate ignorance may simultaneously protect and endanger us. By withholding dangerous knowledge, engineers can prevent misuse, but they may also produce systems that are brittle, stagnant, or alien in their reasoning. Through science fiction archetypes and ethical analysis, this session reframes AI development not as the construction of a controllable machine but as the cultivation of a living system with its own trajectories. The conversation highlights the delicate balance between safety and innovation, ignorance and understanding, and invites participants to consider what kind of intelligences we truly want to bring into the world.
Module ObjectivesModule Summary