DISCIPLINE // COMPUTER SCIENCE & AI

Algorithmic Ethics & Autonomous Systems

A four-week field blueprint that brings Christian technotheology into conversation with the systems students are learning to model, automate, audit, and release.

TARGET LEVEL

Undergraduate / Seminary

UNIT LENGTH

4 Weeks

COURSE POSTURE

“The task is not to make ethics fit automation. It is to teach students to build systems capable of moral scrutiny.”

“The task is not to make ethics fit automation. It is to teach students to build systems capable of moral scrutiny.”

THE FOUR MOVEMENTS / COURSE ARCHITECTURE

A course sequence for critical, constructive agency.

Each week begins with a theological movement and culminates in a technical practice: observe the system, name its fracture, rehearse a repair, and release a public artifact that can bear inspection.

01

Creation — Inherent Order

First principles of deterministic logic and mathematical elegance. Required: Turing + Shannon; model finite automata and Bayesian baselines.

02

Fall — Systemic Fracture

Run an algorithmic bias and surveillance audit. Trace data lineage, corporate incentives, and unintended downstream harm.

03

Redemption — Sandbox & Agency

Work through ethical decision trees with low-stakes failure loops, grace-oriented debugging, and branching scenarios.

04

Restoration — Public Artifact

Release an audited open-source data pipeline that names provenance, repair pathways, and the public good it serves.

WEEK 1 / REQUIRED READING + PRIMARY MODELS

Read Turing and Shannon alongside a model inventory: finite automata, Bayesian baselines, and the first decision rules students will later be asked to scrutinize.

VIRTUAL DISCIPLESHIP FRAMEWORK / 2026

JOSHUA ADRIAN JONES