UW ‘substantially’ revises proposed AI minor after ethics criticism

A proposed UW artificial intelligence (AI) minor was heavily revised after faculty criticized its treatment of AI ethics, according to internal documents and a joint statement obtained by The Daily. The interdisciplinary program, which would be open to students across academic disciplines beginning Spring 2027, is now moving toward formal university approval.

The proposal stems from a Feb. 5 charge by Noah Smith, UW’s vice provost for artificial intelligence, which directed a faculty working group to develop the interdisciplinary minor. An internal May 22 email obtained by The Daily shows the working group circulated an early version of the proposal to a small group of faculty for informal feedback.

In a joint statement to The Daily, working group co-chairs Magdalena Bałazińska, director of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering (Allen School), and anthropology professor Ben Marwick said that feedback prompted a “substantially updated” proposal.

Faculty critics, they wrote, argued the proposal’s treatment of AI ethics “risked becoming a checkbox” rather than a core part of the curriculum.

“As a result, this Minor does not treat AI as an unqualified good or as an inevitable force to be adopted without question,” Bałazińska and Marwick wrote. “Understanding AI also means understanding its harms: its environmental costs, its capacity to reproduce and amplify bias, and its effects on labor and creative practice.”

The proposal comes as colleges nationwide rapidly expand formal AI education. In 2021, researchers at Northeastern University’s Center for Inclusive Computing identified just five AI bachelor’s degree programs. By April 2026, that number had grown to 73 AI majors and 89 AI minors across U.S. universities. UW is now moving to join that list. 

Unlike AI programs centered primarily on technical instruction, the proposed minor would require students to complete at least 28 credits combining coursework in AI methods with ethics, project-based learning, and electives spanning disciplines from nursing to the humanities.

It’s intended to fill an instructional gap for students entering fields where AI systems are increasingly becoming embedded technologies.

“They need to understand how AI works,” Bałazińska and Marwick wrote. “What it can and cannot do, how to reason carefully about its ethical implications and impacts on individuals, societies, disciplines, creative labor, and cultures, when and why to constrain its use, its environmental implications, its historical context, and much more.”

If approved, the minor would become the latest addition to UW’s expanding AI portfolio, following a university-wide AI Task Force, an expanded partnership with Microsoft, AI infrastructure upgrades, and the launch of the $10 million AI@UW initiative.

Emily Bender, a UW linguistics professor who has been a prominent skeptic of what she refers to as “AI hype,” was not among the faculty who initially reviewed the proposal, saying she first received a forwarded copy of the May 22 draft May 26, one day after the feedback deadline had passed. Despite not receiving the draft, Bender said she appreciated the AI minor’s emphasis on bringing together perspectives from across campus.

“Too much discourse in this area centers computer science as the only relevant kind of expertise,” Bender wrote in an email. “In order to make decisions about what to automate, whether, how and when, we need really deep understandings of the social situations in which the automation will land…”

Yet Bender questioned what she described as the proposal’s continued emphasis on “work-force development” over educational goals.

“If we have to react to the hype around ‘AI’ in terms of our educational offerings, then I would hope that what we foreground is critical thinking about the design, development, deployment, and evaluation of technology, rather than whatever tech is currently being sold as ‘AI,’” Bender wrote.

Bałazińska and Marwick said the proposed minor is intended to incorporate perspectives like Bender’s as it continues to develop, adding that those who have yet to review the proposal can contact them directly.

“Contributions from UW’s world leaders in AI studies,” the pair wrote, “are part of what makes UW unique as a place where students can learn to think critically, communicate clearly, and engage respectfully with diverse perspectives about AI.”

Currently, the AI minor’s proposed curriculum would require students to take one course from each of four categories: ethics and societal implications, fundamental AI methods, applied project-based experience, and electives.

Bałazińska and Marwick said the proposed minor defines “AI” not only as a set of computational methods and infrastructure, but also as questions about how the technology is developed, used, and governed alongside its broader impacts on society. That approach, they said, is why the minor is being designed as an interdisciplinary program rather than housed primarily within the Allen School.

The group drafting the proposal includes faculty representing 18 academic units, ranging from computer science and engineering to humanities and social sciences. Those and all campus units, Bałazińska and Marwick wrote, “will be welcome” to develop and teach specific courses in the minor.

The pair said they “anticipate strong demand” from UW Seattle’s over 35,000 graduate students, citing a growing national interest in AI education. They expect annual enrollment in the minor to reach the low hundreds once the program is fully established, though they noted initial enrollment will depend on course availability.

According to Bałazińska and Marwick, the measure of success will not be how many students continue to use AI, but how thoughtfully they engage with it.

“Our graduate,” they wrote, “will be able to make a reasoned, evidence-based argument about whether and how [AI] should be used, what oversight is needed, and who bears the cost when it fails.”

Reach technology beat reporter Talan Collins at news@dailyuw.com. X: @TalanCollins. Bluesky: @talancollins.bsky.social.

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