Date Posted: 09/05/2025
Req ID: 44840
Faculty/Division: Faculty of Arts & Science
Department: Munk Sch Global Affairs & Public Policy
Campus: St. George (Downtown Toronto)

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This graduate seminar explores the potential of new digital datasets and advances in artificial intelligence for understanding critical global challenges.
Traditional data are our information anchors but have downsides: they lag reality, can be scarce, withheld, undermined, or manipulated, or don’t capture complex modern economies and societies. By contrast, each day, scanners, smartphones, and online platforms capture text, images, location, payments, searches, and other real-time, detailed data. This data explosion, combined with increased computing power, is fueling major advances in AI.
This course explores how leaders can use the abundant, real-time, and multi-dimensional digital data now available, in combination with new advances in AI, to spot and respond to problems as they emerge. For example, more readily available satellite images can enable leaders to monitor changes in poverty or climate change more accurately and in near real-time. New AI tools trained on massive text and image datasets can locate previously unknown critical minerals, track sanctions evasion, or better identify disease risks at scale globally. General-purpose AI tools can now collect and categorize billions of data points across multiple indicators and languages to produce detailed inflation or trade metrics.
The course is not technical; the goal is to expose students to these developments and their implications for global affairs intelligence. Through guest speakers, discussions, and assignments, students will learn about and experiment with non-traditional data and evolving AI tools to better understand world events or challenges. These activities will also require students to confront the challenges and risks these developments present. Since this topic is dynamic, there may also be opportunities to explore emerging AI developments and what they mean for global affairs intelligence and for global affairs more generally.

Please refer the Job description for details