The conference will address how we think about our place in the universe and what this means for both religious thought and theological institutions themselves.
Join this ground-breaking one-day conference held by the Union Theological Seminary UTS), the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS),
The Riverside Church and the Greater Good Initiative.
New technologies are transforming our world every day, and the pace of change is only accelerating. In coming years, human beings will create machines capable of out-thinking us and potentially taking on such uniquely-human traits as empathy, ethical reasoning, perhaps even consciousness. This will have profound implications for virtually every human activity, as well as the meaning we impart to life and creation themselves.
This conference will provide an introduction for non-specialists to Artificial Intelligence (AI) by addressing:
What is it? What can it do and be used for? And what will be its implications for choice and free will;
economics and work life; surveillance economies and surveillance states; the changing nature of facts
and truth; and the comparative intelligence and capabilities of humans and machines in the future?
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Leading practitioners, ethicists and theologians will provide cross-disciplinary and cross-denominational perspectives on such challenges as technology addiction, inherent biases and resulting inequalities, the ethics of creating destructive technologies and of turning decision-making over to machines from self-driving cars to “autonomous weapons” systems in warfare, and how we should treat the suffering of "feeling" machines.
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UTS is the oldest independent seminary in the United States and has long been known as a bastion of progressive Christian scholarship. JTS is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism and a major center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies. The Riverside Church is an interdenominational, interracial, international, open and affirming church and congregation serving as a focal point of global and national activism for peace and social justice. The annual Greater Good Gathering which will be held the following week at Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs, focuses on how technology is changing society, politics and the economy – part of a growing nationwide effort to advance conversations promoting the “greater good.”
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9-10:30am Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
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Daniel Araya, Consultant and advisor to companies within tech industry, focusing on innovation, public policy, and business strategy, chairs annual conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Society for Commonground Publishing.
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Vikram Modgil, Founder of Pi Square AI - a decision design company specializing in AI based systems & algorithms, IoT, Augmented Reality & Robotic Process Automation; founder of The Good AI org to drive awareness and consciousness towards transparency in AI.
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Michael Kearns, professor in the Computer and Information Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania, where he holds the National Center Chair, as well as the departments of Economics, Statistics, and Operations, Information and Decisions (OID) in the Wharton School; Founding Director of the Warren Center for Network and Data Sciences; faculty founder and former director of Penn Engineering's Networked and Social Systems Engineering (NETS) Program, external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute; author, The Ethical Algorithm.
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Moderator: Mark Taylor, Chair, Department of Religion, Columbia University. A leading figure in debates about post-modernism, Taylor has written on topics ranging from philosophy, religion, literature, art and architecture to education, media, science, technology and economics.
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10:30am-noon Ethical Issues
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Wendell Wallach, Consultant, ethicist, and scholar at Yale University's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, where he has chaired the Center's working research group on Technology and Ethics. Senior advisor to The Hastings Center, fellow at the Center for Law, Science & Innovation at the Sandra Day O'Connor School of Law (Arizona State University), fellow at the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technology. Author, A Dangerous Master: How to keep technology from slipping beyond our control and Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right From Wrong.
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Michael J. Quinn, Dean of the College of Science and Engineering at Seattle University. In the early 2000s his focus shifted to computer ethics, and in 2004 he published a textbook, Ethics for the Information Age, that explores moral problems related to modern uses of information technology, such as privacy, intellectual property rights, computer security, software reliability, and the relationship between automation and unemployment. The book, now in its eighth edition, has been adopted by more than 125 colleges and universities in the United States and many more internationally.
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Thomas Arnold, Ethics, Human-Robot Interaction, Religious Studies, Philosophy Research Associate, Tufts University Human-Robot Interaction Laboratory; Part-time Lecturer, Tufts University Department of Computer Science; PhD. ABD The Study of Religion, Harvard University; Co-author, Ethics for Psychologists: A Casebook Approach; Member, Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in the Design of Autonomous Systems.
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Brian Green, Director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara Univ. His work is focused on the ethics of technology, including such topics as AI and ethics, the ethics of technological manipulation of humans, the ethics of mitigation of and adaptation towards risky emerging technologies, and various aspects of the impact of technology and engineering on human life and society, including the relationship of technology and religion (particularly the Catholic Church). Green teaches AI ethics in the Graduate School of Engineering and formerly taught several other engineering ethics courses. He is co-author of the Ethics in Technology Practice corporate technology ethics resources.
Moderator: Serene Jones, President, Union Theological Seminary. A highly respected scholar and public intellectual, the Rev. Dr. Serene Jones is the 16th President of the historic Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. The first woman to head the 182-year-old institution, Jones occupies the Johnston Family Chair for Religion and Democracy. She is a Past President of the American Academy of Religion, which annually hosts the world’s largest gathering of scholars of religion. She is the author of several books including Trauma and Grace and, most recently, her memoir Call It Grace: Finding Meaning in a Fractured World. Jones, a popular public speaker, is sought by media to comment on major issues impacting society because of her deep grounding in theology, politics, women’s studies, economics, race studies, history, and ethics.
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12-12:30pm Lunch
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12:30-2pm Ethical and Religious Implications
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Levi Checketts, adjunct professor at Holy Names University, PhD in ethics with focus on theological and technological issues.
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Jason Thacker, Associate Research Fellow and Creative Director at The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. He is also the author of The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity. He writes and speaks on various topics including human dignity, ethics, technology, and artificial intelligence. His writing has been featured at Christianity Today, The Gospel Coalition, Providence Journal, Light Magazine, and many more.
David Bashevkin, director of education of NCSY, the youth movement of the Orthodox Union, and an instructor at Yeshiva University.
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Ted Peters, Distinguished Research Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics, Graduate TheologicalUniversity; His systematic theology, God – The World's Future, now in its 3rd edition, has been used as a text book in numerous seminaries around the world. For more than a decade he edited Dialog, A Journal of Theology. Along with Robert John Russell he is the co-founder and co-editor of the journal, Theology and Science, at the GTU's Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. Ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
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Moderator: John Thatamanil, Associate Professor of Theology & World Religions, Union Theological Seminary. Associate Professor of Theology & World Religions, John eaches a wide variety of courses in the areas of comparative theology, theologies of religious diversity, Hindu-Christian dialogue, the theology of Paul Tillich, theory of religion, and process theology. He is committed to the work of comparative theology—theology that learns from and with a variety of traditions. Professor Thatamanil’s first book is an exercise in constructive comparative theology. The Immanent Divine: God, Creation, and the Human Predicament. An East-West Conversation provides the foundation for a nondualist Christian theology worked out through a conversation between Paul Tillich and Sankara, the master teacher of the Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedanta.
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2-3:30pm Theological Implications
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Noreen Herzfeld, Reuter Professor of Science and Religion at St. John’s University and The College of St. Benedict where she teaches Computer Ethics and Doing Ministry in a Technological Age. She is the author of In Our Image: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit; Technology and Religion: Remaining Human in a Co-Created Age; andThe Limits of Perfection; and editor of Religion and the New Technologies.
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Vincent Bacote, Associate Professor of Theology and Director of the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Professor Bacote‘s areas of teaching and research include theology and culture, theological anthropology, and faith and work. His numerous published works include The Political Disciple: A Theology of Public Life and Erasing Race: Racial Identity and Theological Anthropology – Black Scholars in White Space. Professor Bacote is a graduate of the Citadel, holds a master’s degrees in divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and a master’s degree in philosophy and PhD in theological and religious studies from Drew University.
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Hanna Reichel, Associate Professor of Reformed Theology Princeton Theological Seminary, holds degrees in divinity and economics. Interests and work includes poststructuralist theory, scriptural hermeneutics, political theology, surveillance studies, feminist and queer theologies.
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Robert Geraci, Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College and author of Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics, Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life, and Temples of Modernity: Nationalism, Hinduism, and Transhumanism in South Indian Science.
Moderator: Arnold M. Eisen, Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. Since taking office in 2007, Chancellor Eisen has transformed the education of religious, pedagogical, professional, and lay leaders for North American Jewry, with a focus on graduating highly skilled, innovative leaders who bring Judaism alive in ways that speak authentically to Jews at a time of rapid and far-reaching change.
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