Syllabus
Audience, learning outcomes, schedules, participation, and completion standards.
Proposed pilot · Materials open for review
AI safety, strategy
and community leadership.
How do we help increasingly capable AI benefit people while preserving human control? Work through that question with evidence, a fictional community case, and your own decision brief.
- modules
- 5
- scheduled hours
- 25
- equivalent core materials
- EN / ES
Bring your questions. Bring your perspective.
For college students aged 18 and above, including community college and transfer students across disciplines. No coding or advanced mathematics required. You do not need to agree with a particular AI forecast or policy position.
Read, discuss, and write in Spanish or English. The core explanations and exercises are available here without an account. External readings offer further perspectives, with equivalent HASI activities for working offline.
Practice reasoning you can use.
- Separate evidence, forecasts, and values.
- Evaluate capability claims in context.
- Trace mechanisms of harm and their assumptions.
- Compare safeguards, responsibilities, and tradeoffs.
- Defend a feasible contribution and a 30-day action plan.
Five questions. A connected learning path.
Each module builds one part of your final brief. Begin with the preparation guide, then move through the learning note and worksheet together.
W1 · Decision note
Module 1: What future is worth protecting?
Separate evidence from expectations. Map the people and incentives behind a decision.
W2 · Evaluation card
Module 2: What does a capability claim actually show?
Look beyond a score to tasks, conditions, missing comparisons, and uncertainty.
W3 · Risk map
Module 3: How could harm happen?
Build a causal chain, mark assumptions, and identify a place to intervene.
W4 · Defense plan
Module 4: What makes a safeguard credible?
Compare defenses with real owners, failure modes, tradeoffs, and stopping rules.
W5 · Final brief and action plan
Module 5: What can you contribute and test?
Bring the evidence together in a decision brief and a practical next step.
Make room for the work.
Five weeks, or a five-day intensive. The learning path is the same. Cohort dates and delivery arrangements are agreed with each host institution.
3 hours independently
Read, evaluate sources, write, and develop your brief before each facilitated session. These are active-work budgets, not reading-time estimates.
2 hours together
Discuss and test your reasoning in facilitated groups of 6–10, including a five-minute break per session.
25 scheduled hours across five modules, including 25 minutes of session breaks. Optional enrichment is extra.
Your course desk
Read online, save the PDFs, or write in your own copy of the workbook. The downloads below match the participant edition used in the reader.
Participant workbook
All five learning notes and worksheets, diagnostics, glossary, and source map.
The editable download is a plain-text file (.txt). Save a copy, open it in a text or document editor, and add your responses. Nothing you write is submitted through this site.
Reviewing this for your students?
Review the full syllabus, the student activities, and the proposed completion standard. HASI prepares the materials, facilitation, and feedback. A host provides a program contact, participant recruitment, accessibility and meeting arrangements, and agrees dates with HASI.
Students develop five worksheets and a final decision brief. The proposed standard evaluates reasoning, not agreement with HASI, and offers a make-up route and revision. Written or oral participation and offline materials support different access needs.
This proposed pilot has not yet been externally reviewed or piloted with learners. Materials are available to review; a cohort is arranged directly with HASI. It does not confer university credit or BlueDot certification.