UC Berkeley\u2019s philosophy department is launching a new lecture series program titled the Sarah Douglas Lectures on Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence, which will focus on AI and its relationship to human cognition.<\/p>\n
The program will introduce both a lecture series and a supporting symposium, aiming to engage the public on these topics. The initiative\u2019s fellows will be philosophy professors Geoffrey Lee and Ver\u00f3nica G\u00f3mez S\u00e1nchez; the fellowship will rotate among faculty every three to four years. They will also be leading the symposium.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea is to catalyze the ongoing conversation about the nature of both human and artificial minds,\u201d Lee said in an email. \u201cBut the focus on AI is also about understanding ourselves better: the attempt to create artificial systems that replicate human psychological capacities has long been a way to better understand what it means for humans to have these properties.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lee and G\u00f3mez S\u00e1nchez were chosen as fellows for their expertise in the \u201cbest, most current methods of philosophical reflection\u201d regarding AI and the human mind, according toAlva No\u00eb, chair of the philosophy department.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The fellows were responsible for picking speakers for the lecture series \u2014 they chose philosopher David Chalmers for the first lecture, which will occur next May. These lectures will be held annually.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that the more we talk about this new phenomenon, the more it will inform choices we make at a personal level and how we use AI in every aspect of our life,\u201d No\u00eb said.<\/p>\n
The program received initial funding from Sarah Douglas, campus alumna and retired University of Oregon professor. Douglas wanted to create a space for public discussion about AI, not only for students but also for the larger Berkeley community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Douglas said AI discussions are important and ethical to have, and she wants this lecture series to focus on questions such as whether a computer can think, whether that will ever be possible and the idea of consciousness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing about Berkeley, for me, was that it opened my mind up. I could talk about things that were not usually talked about,\u201d Douglas said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t just like learning something specific but imagining big ideas. So I guess that\u2019s what I\u2019m hoping for.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAI bots (such as) ChatGPT are not going away,\u201d No\u00eb said.However, the goal of this initiative is not necessarily to impact campus policies, but instead to make people \u201crealize that this technology is really philosophically loaded,\u201d according to No\u00eb.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley\u2019s philosophy department is launching a new lecture series program titled the Sarah Douglas Lectures on Philosophy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[20505,2269,20506,20503,143,145,144,20502,20501,20507,20504],"class_list":["post-26983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-alva-no","tag-chatgpt","tag-david-chalmers","tag-geoffrey-lee","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-sarah-douglas","tag-sarah-douglas-lectures-on-philosophy-and-artificial-intelligence","tag-university-of-oregon","tag-vernica-gmez-snchez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}