CORE 499 - Special Topics
Spring 2026
2 Units
Wednesdays 1:00PM-2:50PM
At the Ahmanson Lab (LVL 301)
Dr. Curtis Fletcher
OPEN TO ALL MAJORS!
“The emphasis will be on how to think, rather than what to think” – Sidney Harman
Artificial Intelligence and the Culture of Simulation
“It's my favorite class I've taken so far at USC.”
_____
“[This class] was totally mind bending!”
_____
“This was the most fun learning experience I’ve had at USC so far!”
_____
“CORE-499 has got to be one of my favorite classes at USC.”
Throughout four sections, this course examines how the rise of simulation is redefining cultural values, human relationships, and the nature of experience. In the first section, The Evolution of Simulated Realities, we will investigate how humans have recreated the world through visual and computational simulations, from stereoscopes to generative AI. In the second section, The Philosophies of Simulated Lives, we’ll investigate how simulation technologies reshape ideas about consciousness and existence, from mind uploading to the Simulation Hypothesis. In the third section, The Politics of Simulated Knowledge, we’ll investigate how generative AI blurs truth and reality by fueling disinformation and by turning the world and its people into predictive data models. In the final section, The World of Simulated Agency, we’ll investigate how AI alters ideas of autonomy and intimacy through simulated relationships, deceptive systems, and debates over artificial consciousness.
__________
This class is based on the premise that we are currently living in a new era—an era of simulation. In just the last few years, the world itself his become increasingly simulate-able. Digital replicas of the world that once demanded years of research and massive datasets can now be achieved in minutes or seconds with very little training data. For instance, today it is possible to generate a convincing replica of a specific person's voice using only a few minutes of recorded audio. Five years ago, this would have required ten hours of high-quality recordings; ten years ago it was virtually impossible. Similar breakthroughs are unfolding across all domains: the physical world is now simulate-able through AI-generated hyper-realistic images, video, and interactive 3D environments; human agency is simulate-able through increasingly expressive and personality-rich avatars, virtual influencers, and chatbot companions; and complex social systems are simulate-able via agentic AI, bot-based social simulators, and behavioral forecasting.
As a result, we now inhabit a moment in which AI-generated text, media, environments, and interactions are becoming indistinguishable from the real and, in some cases, even preferred. At the same time, data models used to capture and predict concrete aspects of the world are increasingly treated not merely as stand-ins for reality, but as epistemologically equivalent to the things they represent. This shift marks a profound cultural transformation in which the boundaries between the simulated and the authentic are increasingly blurred and where digital representations and/or data models are increasingly mistaken for, or privileged over, the more complex and messy real-world equivalents for which they were once meant to be proxies.
This blurring of the simulated and the real, along with a growing affinity for the former, is already shaping how people relate, feel, and navigate the world. In the last year alone, thousands of people have entered into romantic relationships with AI companions, fully aware that they are not conscious beings. Reflecting an increasing preference for the simulated, they often describe their companions as more loving and emotionally supportive than their human counterparts. At the same time, countless others have come to believe that large language models possess genuine consciousness or self-awareness, signaling how rapidly the line between the real and the simulated is eroding for some. Even something as ordinary as a smartphone photo now reveals our shifting relationship to simulation: users readily embrace 100x zoom capabilities, knowing that the feature uses generative AI to fabricate visual details never actually captured by the lens. In these and countless other cases, simulation is not simply accepted—it is trusted, desired, and increasingly lived as real.
Against this backdrop, this course invites students to critically examine simulation as both a technological practice and a cultural condition. It will provide students with the opportunity to use AI-powered simulation as a lens through which to explore the shifting nature of human values, interactions, and attitudes in the early 21st century. In doing so, it will engage them in a comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of simulated realities, preparing them to navigate our increasingly synthetic digital spaces in critical and informed ways.
Course Requirements:
Participation (15%): Active participation in discussions is essential in this seminar. As is attendance. In order to effectively participate in discussions, students must come prepared by thoughtfully completing reading assignments each week.
AI News Items (40%): Each student will give four brief (2 to 3-minute) presentations on current AI-related news items over the course of the semester. These will be informal, discussion-style presentations meant to open class with a short explanation of the news item, its relevance to course themes, and a critical question it raises.
Final Project (45%): For the final assignment, each student will write a 5-page essay that develops an original argument about the ways in which AI-powered simulations are reshaping a specific aspect of human experience, drawing on course materials, discussions, and external sources.
Ample in-class time will be dedicated to developing research questions, crafting thesis statements, identifying sources, and working on drafts.
All students will have the opportunity to publish their final essay in Simulation & Society, the Ahmanson Lab’s online journal. Simulation & Society is a stand-alone digital publication hosted on its own platform, with all essays also published on our official LinkedIn journal page. Students’ essays can be shared both through the Lab’s LinkedIn presence and on their own profiles, allowing their work to reach wider academic and professional audiences.
Course Outcomes:
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Outline the historical development of technologies used to simulate reality and model social and natural aspects the world.
- Critically analyze the impact of simulation technologies on society, culture, politics, knowledge, and reality.
- Understand how technologies shape and are shaped by a wide range of human endeavors, using them as a lens to examine shifts in our thought and behavior.
- Engage thoughtfully in digital spaces, with a heightened awareness for discerning authentic information and identities from increasingly simulated content online.
Email Curtis Fletcher at cfletche@usc.edu with any questions.