I'll admit this only came to mind because of the dubious anthropomorphizing in the piece ("mental imagery" and "dreams"), but I've really enjoyed Stephen Wolfram's writings on AI, including Generative AI Space and the Mental Imagery of Alien Minds. I'm guessing your students would enjoy it. 

His write-up on ChatGPT is also a very good intro to LLMs and neural networks, touching on some of what's going on behind the scenes while remaining approachable for non-technical readers.

Paradoxically, I don't have any concrete title in mind, but perhaps some science-fiction story could be supplied somewhere in the course? 2001 Space Odyssey as some most basic example.

There's a fabulous book called God, Human, Animal, Machine written by Meghan O'Gleblyn that tackled the idea of the rise of AI and whether or not we could consider consciousness. I am fascinated with AI and I'm obsessed with how humans think (psychology degree) and I found it such an interesting read because it takes what we know and uses it to question the impact of AI. The greatest thing about the book is that the author struggled with her family of origin's religious ideology and now she's facing the same big questions about the meaning of consciousness and life now with the invention of AI. Read the reviews for more insight but I think it may be a good introduction from a bigger picture that includes some risk assessment and also some questions on an even bigger scale about the role of humanity.