The Institute for Religion and Science is sponsoring a series of lectures dealing with Artificial Intelligence and Robotics from the perspective of science and religion. Speakers include Philip Hefner, PhD, Noreen Herzfeld, PhD, and Anne Foerst, ThD. Each event is free and open to the public and will be held online beginning at 7pm ET.
“Alexa, Do you Love Me? AI and Authentic Relationships”
With Noreen Herzfeld, PhD
Nicolas and Bernice Reuter Professor of Science and Religion
St. John's University and the College of St. Benedict
February 28, 2023
Online at 7pm ET
We converse with increasingly intelligent programs such as Alexa and ChatGPT, but can we have a truly authentic relationship with them? What does it take to have such a relationship with another person, or with a non-human being such as a pet, an AI, or God? Can we love an AI and if we do, will it ever love us back?
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 The Artifice of Intelligence: Human and Divine Relationship in a Robotic World (Fortress, 2022), 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 writes for the Avon Hills Salon at avonhillssalon.com
Register here.
Chestnut Hill College's Institute for Reliigion and Science is committed to nurturing the constructive engagement of Religion/Spirituality and Science/Technology, and to promoting a dialogue that is interfaith and multi-science. It aims to stimulate interdisciplinary thinking and discussion in contemporary society and to foster encounters of Religion with Science by means of lectures, conferences, workshops, dialogue groups, as well as activities that support a more integrated approach to the teaching of religion and science.
Lectures are free and open to the public, though registration is required. Lectures for the spring are listed below:
The Greatest Challenge: The Created Co-Creator Createsa Co-Creator - 1/25
Alexa, Do You Love Me? AI and Authentic Relationship - 2/28
Can AI Systems be Persons? - 3/21
