CCAI9023
Real Harm in an Unreal World: Crime, Regulation and AI
Offer semester
Lecture time
Lecture venue
Credits awarded
2nd semester
Wednesday
13:00 – 14:50
KKLG109
6
This course examines how technology – in particular Artificial Intelligence – reshapescrime, harm, and social control in contemporary society. Students will learn the utilityof exploring the complex relationship between technology and harm with asociological lens.
The course investigates how acts become crimes through a process of socialconstruction, such as in response to concerns and consequences of new technologies.Our case studies include e-commerce for banned goods and services, digital crimenetworks, and the electronic organization of extremism. The course then shifts to howpowerful institutions leverage technology for surveillance and control to maintainsocial order. The course concludes by exploring related challenges between liberationof control. Is there a balance? Can we find it? Readings from sociology and criminologywill help students develop critical perspectives on technology and consider deeperquestions about harm, ethics, and power.
On completing the course, students will be able to:
Explain the social construction of crime in a time of rapid, technological change, and how theconstruction process is shaped by culture.
Analyze the sources and construction of moral panics, and how they may shape digital policies in afast-changing world.
Consider the harmful consequences of AI as people, states, and firms get access to powerfultechnology.
Discuss the social and moral influence of technology firms, as regulators of behavior, nationallyand globally.
Recognize the issue of inequality in questions about technological change.
Tasks
Weighting
In-class tests
40%
Essay
30%
Class participation
5%
Reading annotations
5%
Tutorial presentation
20%
Normality and the Social Construction of Crime – How do we decide what’s acceptable?
Christie, N. (2004). A Suitable Amount of Crime. Routledge. [Chap. 1 “Crime Does Not Exist”]
Horwitz, A. V. (2008). Normality. Contexts, 7(1), 70-71.
The changing landscape of crime and harm
MacFarquhar, L. (2018). The mind-expanding ideas of Andy Clark. The New Yorker, 26. From https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/the-mind-expanding-ideas-of-andy-clark
Moral Panics in the Face of New Technology – Sometimes we get it wrong
Goode, E., & Ben-Yehuda, N. (2010). Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance. John Wiley & Sons. [Chap. 1 “Enter The Moral Panic”]
Digitally Organized Crime – Information technology and crime networks
Ladegaard, I. (2025). Open Secrecy: How police crackdowns and creative problem-solving brought illegal markets out of the shadows. Social Forces, 99(2), 532-559.
Extremism – How IT empowers extremist groups
Roose, K. (2019). What Does PewDiePie Really Believe? The New York Times Magazine.
Wojcieszak, M. (2010). Don’t talk to me. New Media & Society, 12(4), 637-655.
State Surveillance in the East and West – Balancing liberty and control
Fourcade, M., & Healy, K. (2017). Seeing like a market. Socio-Economic Review, 15(1), 9-29.
Schneier, B. (2015). Data and Goliath. WW Norton & Company. [Chap. 5 “Surveillance Capitalism – The rise of private surveillance”]
Organizational Deviance – Harm from powerful actors
Zuboff, S. (2018). Surveillance Capitalism. [Excerpt]
Living with Platform Power – Accountability and resistance
Burrell, J. and Fourcade, M. (2021). The society of algorithms. Annual review of sociology, 47(1), 213-237.
Inequality – Who benefits from AI?
Van Dijk, J. A. (2006). Digital divide research. Poetics, 34(4-5), 221-235.
Digital Victimology – Gendered violence in the digital age
Talbot, M. (2016, November 27). The attorney fighting revenge porn. The New Yorker. From https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/12/05/the-attorney-fighting-revenge-porn
Digital vs. Analog Lawbreakers – Should digital crimes be treated differently
Garland, D. (1991). Sociological perspectives on punishment. Crime and Justice, 14, 115-165.
Offer Semester | Lecture Day | Lecture Time | Venue | Credits awarded |
|---|---|---|---|---|
2nd semester | Wednesday | 13:00 – 14:50 | KKLG109 | 6 |
