W04Course shell3 hours

Privacy in the Age of AI

The death of anonymity and inference control

If an AI can infer what you never disclosed, what exactly did you consent to?

Privacy moves beyond secrecy toward contextual integrity, inference, aggregation, biometric identification, differential privacy, and the ability to contest information flows.

Join the live room

Before class

Map one everyday AI information flow: actors, attributes, transmission principle, inferred data, and consequence.

After class

Revise the flow with one technical safeguard, one institutional safeguard, and one remedy.

The promise

By the end of this room…

01Apply contextual integrity to an AI information flow.
02Explain re-identification, inference, and aggregation risk.
03Interpret differential privacy as a governance choice as well as a technical guarantee.
04Design consent, purpose limitation, and deletion around derived data.

Why this week now

Signals, not scene-setting.

AI systems can create sensitive attributes that a person never disclosed and cannot meaningfully inspect.

Privacy-preserving statistics redistribute error and utility; the budget is a public choice, not a magic setting.

Biometric search exposes the gap between formal deletion orders and global enforcement capacity.

Run of show

Provoke → frame → work → argue → synthesize.

Open student room ↗

0:00
provocation
Commit before the concepts
A system accurately infers a sensitive fact from data you knowingly shared. Was your privacy violated?
Live activity · week 4 opening
0:15
frame
Privacy is an information-flow norm
AI systems can create sensitive attributes that a person never disclosed and cannot meaningfully inspect.
0:45
discussion
Reading tension
Student leaders present the assigned readings as a clash of defensible positions, then moderate questions that expose the hidden assumptions.
1:10
frame
From anonymity to inference control
Privacy-preserving statistics redistribute error and utility; the budget is a public choice, not a magic setting.
1:35
break
Break
Ten minutes. Leave the room's unresolved question visible.
1:45
forensics
Clearview × Census disclosure-avoidance lab
Role-based groups work the anchor case through technical, legal, stakeholder, and normative lenses.
Deliverable · A two-minute finding with evidence, uncertainty, and an actionable remedy.Live activity · week 4 forensics
2:25
controversy
Age-verification structured controversy
Assigned positions, side-switch, and a joint recommendation that names the value or stakeholder it leaves exposed.
Live activity · week 4 controversy
2:50
synthesis
Re-vote and leave a trace
Repeat the opening vote, inspect what moved, and submit the strongest argument you still reject.
Live activity · week 4 exit