Seminar series

We often view AI as cold science, yet Silicon Valley speaks of 'salvation' and 'apocalypse'. In this opening session, we ask if we are re-enchanting a secular world with magic algorithms, effectively building a new deity to solve our problems.

If an algorithm writes a heartbreaking poem without feeling heartbreak, does the poem mean anything? We challenge the idea that technical proficiency equals creativity, debating whether literature is a transmission of the soul or merely words in a pretty order.

Historians warn that LLMs may simply tell us what we want to hear. We discuss the danger of 'history by confirmation bias', asking if AI can ever produce original insight or if it is doomed to reinforce existing narratives and generic summaries.

Walter Benjamin warned that cheap copies destroy the 'aura' of original art. In an age where Midjourney generates infinite content, we debate whether we are democratising art for everyone or turning human expression into disposable data.

Hubert Dreyfus argued that intelligence requires 'being-in-the-world'. We explore the theory that we think with our bodies and our situation — things a server farm cannot possess. Can a disembodied AI ever truly 'think'?

Challenging the concept of 'biologism', we explore the dilemma of sentience. If a machine becomes smart enough to have interests or claim fear, are we accidentally creating a race of slaves? We discuss the 'New Speciesism' and the difficulty of proving consciousness.

Using Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as our guide, we examine why humanity is obsessed with creating things that look like us, only to reject them when they become too real. Are we afraid of the monster, or of recognising ourselves in the mirror it holds up?

LLMs operate on probability; humans operate on lived experience. We tackle the fundamental mismatch between data scraping and social interaction, discussing the risk of 'epistemicide' — where models trained on dominant cultures flatten diverse ways of thinking.

From voice cloning to copyright wars, we explore the 'digital replication right'. We examine the ethical nightmare of posthumous voice replication, asking: "Is this a technological breakthrough or a form of 'digital grave-robbing'?"

In our final session, we move from critique to 'paradoxical optimism'. We discuss how the automation of the formulaic might free the humanities to become 'maximalist' — focusing on the extraordinary, poetic and singular aspects of thought that machines cannot replicate.