Co-Opting AI: Religion
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NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge, the NYU Center for Responsible AI, the 370 Jay Project, and the NYU Tandon Department of Technology, Culture and Society invite you to a discussion on religion in the series “Co-Opting AI.”
This event will discuss the various and manifold relationships between AI and religion, ranging from religious and techno-political imaginations of the future and how we should live, to questions around agency, identity, and power.
Robert M. Geraci is Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College and author of several books, including Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics (Oxford 2010) and Futures of Artificial Intelligence: Perspectives from India and the United States (Oxford 2021). His research has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the National Research Foundation of Korea, the American Academy of Religion, and twice by Fulbright-Nehru Professional Excellence (Research) Awards. He is a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.
Noreen Herzfeld is the Nicholas and Bernice Reuter Professor of Science and Religion at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict. She holds degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from The Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in Theology from The Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Herzfeld is the author of In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit (Fortress, 2002), Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-Created World (Templeton, 2009), The Limits of Perfection in Technology, Religion, and Science (Pandora, 2010) and editor of Religion and the New Technologies (MDPI, 2017). Herzfeld is a research associate at the Institute for Philosophical Studies, Koper Slovenia and the Research Institute for Theology and Religion, University of South Africa. She is a co-founder and writer for the Avon Hills Salon at avonhillssalon.com.
Damien Patrick Williams is a PhD candidate in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society, at Virginia Tech in the United States. Damien researches how technologies such as algorithms, machine intelligence, and biotechnological interventions are impacted by the values, knowledge systems, philosophical explorations, social structures, and even religious beliefs of human beings. He is especially concerned with how the consideration and treatment of marginalized peoples will affect the creation of so-called artificially intelligent systems and other technosocial structures of human societies. More on Damien’s research can be found at AFutureWorthThinkingAbout.
Mona Sloane is a sociologist working on design and inequality, specifically in the context of AI design and policy. She is a Senior Research Scientist at the NYU Center for Responsible AI, an Adjunct Professor at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, a Fellow with NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge (IPK) and The GovLab, and the Director of the *This Is Not A Drill* program on technology, inequality and the climate emergency at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. She is principal investigator on multiple research projects on AI and society, and holds an affiliation with the Tübingen AI Center at the University of Tübingen in Germany. Mona also is the convenor of the IPK Co-Opting AI series and serves as editor of the technology section at Public Books. Follow her on Twitter @mona_sloane.
The Co-Opting AI event series is convened by Mona Sloane. They are hosted at IPK and co-sponsored by the 370 Jay Project, the NYU Center for Responsible AI, and the NYU Tandon Department of Technology, Culture and Society.