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VIDEO AVAILABLE | Spirit and the Machine: Catholic Responses to an Increasingly Artificial World

VIDEO AVAILABLE | Spirit and the Machine: Catholic Responses to an Increasingly Artificial World
 
“Now more than ever, we must guarantee an outlook in which AI is developed with a focus not on technology, but rather for the good of humanity and of the environment, of our common and shared home and of its human inhabitants, who are inextricably connected.” -Pope Francis
 
Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most important technologies in the world today-- but it is also one rife with serious spiritual, social and ethical questions. We hosted a robust interdisciplinary discussion that aims to promote responsibility among organizations, governments, institutions of higher education, and the private sector and explore resources that the Catholic intellectual and social teaching tradition might offer to the conversation.
 
Co-sponsored by America Media, the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, and the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture.
 
May 12, 2021
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM CDT
Zoom Forum
 
This event was free and open to the public.
 
John Farrell is a writer and producer working in Boston. He is the author of The Day Without Yesterday: Lemaître, Einstein and the Birth of Modern Cosmology from Basic Books, and The Clock and the Camshaft: And Other Medieval Inventions We Still Can’t Live Without, just out from Prometheus Books.

A graduate of Harvard College with a B.A. in English and American Literature, Farrell has written for Commonweal, Aeon, Skeptic, Cosmos Magazine, New Scientist, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Boston Globe, Salon, National Review, Forbes and The Tablet of London. His ficton has appeared in Dappled Things, his poetry in Penwood Review and First Things.
Fr. Philip Larrey, Ph.D., is a Catholic priest who holds the Chair of Logic and Epistemology at the Pontifical Lateran University in the Vatican, and is the Dean of the Philosophy Department. His publications deal with the philosophy of knowledge and critical thinking. He has published several books concerning the effects of the new digital era on society. Two of his recent works highlight this theme: Futuro ignoto (IF Press) and Connected World (Penguin). The Italian translation of this latter was published by Mondadori in 2018, entitled, Dove inizia il futuro.

For years he has been following the philosophical implications of the rapid development of artificial intelligence. With candor, he challenges industry leaders he comes into contact with at the Vatican to discuss how technology is shaping the fabric of our society. His new book, Artificial Humanity, delves into a more philosophical discussion of what AI research means for all of humanity. 
 
Ann (Gregg) Skeet joined the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, the Jesuit university in Silicon Valley, as its senior director of leadership ethics in 2014. She researches, writes, and speaks about the ethical dilemmas of leaders and followers, corporate culture, and the ethical challenges of governance and works with executives to shape and reinforce organizational cultures that encourage ethical outcomes. 
 
Skeet is a member of the steering committee for the Responsible Use of Technology at the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the 4th Industrial Revolution and the Partnership on AI’s Working Group on AI, Labor and the Economy. She launched a social sector ethics program and led development of a customized version of Standards for Excellence, a national code of ethics and accountability for the nonprofit sector, using the Center’s Framework for Ethical Decision Making. She writes about issues facing leaders across sectors for her blog, Benison: The Practice of Ethical Leadership, and other media outlets, and is a frequent media commentator.