Technology Archives | Page 4 of 4 | National Humanities Center

Technology

%customfield(subject)%

Panel Discussion: Can Morality Be Built into Computers?

Do we believe digital employees will become indistinguishable from human employees this decade? As democratization of AI leads to proliferation of such digital agents, how should we prepare for humans to continue to be in command? When questioning if morality can be built into computers, we must simultaneously ask: whose morality? Could there be a successful deep learning AI that answers moral dilemmas? Or is there reason to think that matters are different in the case of morality?

%customfield(subject)%

Demonstration of Ipsoft’s Amelia, “The Most Human Artificial Intelligence Platform on the Market”

Chetan Dube envisions a world where humans and machines work closely together to build a radically more efficient planet. His research has focused on deep AI, and he pioneered the use of AI-enabled digital labor across industries. Amelia’s brain uses episodic memory, process memory, intent recognition, and emotional intelligence to respond to complex queries, process transactions, and deliver personalized customer service. Amelia stores facts, concepts, and the associations between them in her semantic memory. From standard operating procedures (SOPs) to policy documents, she can be trained to apply them to conversations.

%customfield(subject)%

Panel Discussion: How Has Artificial Intelligence Challenged the Boundaries of Humanistic Thinking and How Might the Humanities Provide New Models for Artificial Intelligence?

Can AI have emotions, can machine learning models truly learn? Can AI systems be used to improve human moral judgments? How might collaboration between humanists and technologists produce more rigorous forms of learning and verification? These and other questions are the subject of a lively exchange between panelists Wendy Chun, Sebastian Liao, Safiya Umoja Noble, and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.

%customfield(subject)%

Keynote Address: “Regressing to Eugenics? Technologies and Histories of Recognition”

In her keynote address, Wendy Chun discusses how artificial intelligence reproduces and exacerbates ideologies about identity and contributes to the increasingly fractious politics of the twenty-first century. A leading thinker on the influence of new technologies, Chun is the Canada 150 Research Chair in New Media at Simon Fraser University. She also leads the university’s Digital Democracies Institute, whose purpose is to integrate research in the humanities and data sciences to address questions of equality and social justice in order to combat the proliferation of online “echo chambers,” abusive language, discriminatory algorithms and mis/disinformation.

%customfield(subject)%

Panel Discussion: Can Artificial Intelligence Create, and What Is the Role of the Artist?

With the prevalence of artificial intelligence in our daily lives, it’s natural to ask, “What will be the future of art in an AI-driven society?” This question becomes even more relevant as AI increasingly appears in the creative domain. Across human history, artists have always integrated new technologies into their practice—from oil paint and printmaking in the Renaissance to photography, motion pictures, and computer animation in the modern era. In this panel discussion, artists Ahmed Elgammal and Carla Gannis talk about their work, created with AI technologies, and how their relationships with AI inform their creative processes.

%customfield(subject)%

Algorithms in Funk Music

Late scholar James A. Snead wrote that repetition in Black American creative expression is most prevalent in performance such as rhythm in music, dance and language. He used James Brown’s “Cold Sweat” to demonstrate this, revealing the algorithmic design of the song. This helped me connect the cultural arts to technology, specifically through computation and … Continued

%customfield(subject)%

The Burden of Sugar

Visiting a sugar mill on the coast of Barbados, I wondered how far humans are willing to go for the everyday resources I take for granted. What are we willing to do to the environment or other human beings for sugar, salt, and electricity? In this image, you see the only wind-powered sugar mill still … Continued

%customfield(subject)%

The World We Live in isn’t as Big as You Think

On Tuesday February 6th of 2018, I watched SpaceX launch Falcon Heavy and successfully land two of its boosters. This launch was inspiring to many people because it was the first rocket launched capable of reaching Mars. The fact that Musk choose to launch his personal Tesla Roadster as a deadweight payload was a truly … Continued

%customfield(subject)%

Michael Burroughs and Allison Cohen, "How to Think Like a Philosopher in the Digital Age"

How have technological innovations helped students and others engage with, and better understand, longstanding philosophical questions? How does philosophical training help us grapple with contemporary concerns surrounding technology and its influences on our lives and societies? In this podcast, Michael Burroughs, executive director of the​ ​Kegley Institute of Ethics and assistant professor of philosophy at California State University, Bakersfield, and Allison Cohen, who teaches Advanced Placement U.S. government and philosophy at Langley High School in McLean, VA discuss​ ​the ways technology has contributed to the study and teaching of philosophy.