INDIVIDUAL LEARNERS

SCHOOL OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Ethical AI
Course Syllabus
Overview
In this course, learners will begin to approach and apply ethical AI. Coursework will enable practitioners to design and build
models with enhanced fairness and limited bias to avoid unforeseen consequences. Additionally, learners will connect ethical
AI concepts to critical issues in privacy, governance, transparency, and security. They’ll begin with acquiring ethical AI literacy
skills that will enable them to engage in more meaningful discussions across AI disciplines and apply ethical AI principles to
their organization. Learners will then implement technical measures toward bias, fairness, and explainability to help ensure an
ethical future for all.

Program information

Estimated Time Skill Level

1 month* Intermediate

*The length of this program is an estimation of total hours the average student may take to complete all required
coursework, including lecture and project time. If you spend about 5 hours per week working through the program, you
should finish within the time provided. Actual hours may vary.

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 Prerequisites

Prior to taking this course, learners should be able to:

• Identify and articulate the popular use cases of AI systems in society, such as autonomous vehicles, smart voice assistants,
and robots.

• Create a machine learning model, such as a linear or logistic regression model, naive Bayes classifier, or neural network
using the scikit-learn framework.

• Perform basic data parsing and visualization activities, including using pandas data frames and visualization libraries such as
matplotlib.

• Create efficient scripts using Python 3.7.6 or higher versions using variables, functions, and common data types.

• Articulate fundamental concepts on AI lifecycle phases (e.g., training and deployment), the inputs to AI systems (e.g, image,
text, tabular), and the outputs/results of a typical AI system (e.g., predictions, inferences).

Required Hardware/Software

To run demo material or exercises locally, learners will need a computer running a 64-bit operating system with at least 8GB
of RAM, along with administrator account permissions sufficient to install programs including Anaconda with Python 3.7 or a
higher Python version and supporting packages. Most modern Windows, OS X, and Linux laptops or desktops will work well.

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 Course Project

AI Ethics for Personalized Budget Prediction

Personalization is a central aspect of many core AI systems. In this project, learners are tasked with
designing an AI model for budget prediction and applying ethical AI considerations. Learners will use
data exploration and bias and fairness measurement skills to complete the first phase of the project
around harm quantification. Learners will then apply bias mitigation skills towards remediating the harm,
and will construct a model card articulating the ethical implications, quantitative analysis, and business
consequences of the use case.

• Articulate the context and motivation for ethical AI.

Lesson 1
• Create an ethical AI perspective to understand the strengths and weaknesses
Introduction to Ethical AI of our thinking.

• Articulate the impact of bias and fairness on decision-making with AI.

Lesson 2 • Identify and develop organizational ethical AI pipelines, guidelines, and
frameworks.
AI Ethics for Organizations
• Articulate components of ethical governance initiatives.

• Identify types of data and machine learning (ML) bias and where they are
introduced.
Lesson 3
• Identify harms in AI solutions.

Identifying Bias • Define AI fairness problem statements and priorities.

Towards Fairness
• Apply methodologies for identifying data and AI models bias.

• Apply metrics for measuring AI bias and fairness.

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 • Identify bias and fairness with AI lifecycle phases and negative feedback loops.

• Assess the strengths and weaknesses of bias and fairness mitigation strategies
Lesson 4 and metrics.

Mitigating Bias • Implement mitigation strategies to improve fairness in AI models and

Towards Fairness solutions.

• Articulate considerations towards designing and building data and models with
enhanced fairness.

• Articulate elements of legal programs towards data privacy, AI security, and

transparency.

Lesson 5 • Articulate compliance metrics for responsible data governance.

• Articulate what explainability is in AI/ML and apply solutions.

Transparency, Trust
& Explainability • Communicate trust to customers and users of AI/ML systems using compliance
and creating industry standard documentation.

• Identify ethical AI auditing mechanisms.

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Meet your instructor.

Ria Cheruvu
AI Ethics Lead Architect at Intel

Ria Cheruvu is Intel’s NEX AI Ethics Lead Architect, leading trustworthy AI. She is an emerging
industry speaker and has a master’s in data science from Harvard University. Ria previously served
as a teaching fellow for Harvard’s 2021 data science graduate curriculum and lead instructor for
Eduonix’s ML deployment course.

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Udacity’s learning
experience

Hands-on Projects Quizzes

Open-ended, experiential projects are designed Auto-graded quizzes strengthen comprehension.
to reflect actual workplace challenges. They aren’t Learners can return to lessons at any time during
just multiple choice questions or step-by-step the course to refresh concepts.
guides, but instead require critical thinking.

Knowledge Custom Study Plans

Find answers to your questions with Knowledge, Create a personalized study plan that fits your
our proprietary wiki. Search questions asked by individual needs. Utilize this plan to keep track of
other students, connect with technical mentors, movement toward your overall goal.
and discover how to solve the challenges that
you encounter.

Workspaces Progress Tracker

See your code in action. Check the output and Take advantage of milestone reminders to stay
quality of your code by running it on interactive on schedule and complete your program.
workspaces that are integrated into the platform.

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Our proven approach for building
job-ready digital skills.
Experienced Project Reviewers

Verify skills mastery.

• Personalized project feedback and critique includes line-by-line code review from
skilled practitioners with an average turnaround time of 1.1 hours.

• Project review cycle creates a feedback loop with multiple opportunities for
improvement—until the concept is mastered.

• Project reviewers leverage industry best practices and provide pro tips.

Technical Mentor Support

24/7 support unblocks learning.

• Learning accelerates as skilled mentors identify areas of achievement and potential
for growth.

• Unlimited access to mentors means help arrives when it’s needed most.

• 2 hr or less average question response time assures that skills development stays on track.

Mentor Network

Highly vetted for effectiveness.

• Mentors must complete a 5-step hiring process to join Udacity’s selective network.

• After passing an objective and situational assessment, mentors must demonstrate

communication and behavioral fit for a mentorship role.

• Mentors work across more than 30 different industries and often complete a Nanodegree
program themselves.

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Learn more at
www.udacity.com/online-learning-for-individuals →

12.01.22 | V1.0