Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Catholic Thought

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                            Jun 23toJun 29
                            
2024

The last few years have seen the rapid advance of artificial intelligence (AI), bearing potentially great benefits for the common good but also many dangers. AI applications are shaping society and individual life, leaving governments, businesses, and individuals struggling to address the effects of this powerful technology. This five-day seminar will explore how the Catholic intellectual tradition can help contemporary society develop an ethics for AI. Possible topics that will be addressed include: virtue ethics and AI-driven applications’ effects on character; arguments over the personhood of AI; the resources of Catholic Social Thought for confronting dangerous social effects of AI on society, such as those emanating from algorithmic bias; AI’s influence on work, especially in the caring professions; potential tools for AI governance. Participants will engage a range of theological and secular sources on the questions of AI.

LOCATION AND FORMAT

The seminar will take place at Duke University in Durham, NC. Admitted students will be required to arrange their own travel to and from the seminar.
Admitted students will be granted a stipend of $350 to offset travel costs
Lodging and most meals (some on their own) will be provided for the students for the duration of the seminar.
Participants will arrive in Durham, NC on Sunday, June 23 and depart on Saturday, June 29. The seminar will take place from Monday to Friday, with a lecture and discussion session each morning and afternoon.
Participants will be required to read the assigned materials in preparation for the seminar.
In order to receive the $350 stipend, students must participate fully in all seminar activities and complete a survey at the end of the seminar.

APPLICATION INFORMATION

Open to Ph.D. students in theology, philosophy, computer science, and other relevant fields of study. Limited spots open to professionals within the field.
Applicants must submit an online application, including details on their course of study, a statement of interest, and a letter of recommendation (strongly encouraged).
Applications Deadline is February 2.
15 applicants will be admitted to the seminar.

This seminar is made possible through the support of grant #62372 from the John Templeton Foundation, “In Lumine: Promoting the Catholic Intellectual Tradition on Campuses Nationwide.” This program is copresented by Fons Vitae at Duke University, and the Nova Forum. This program is cosponsored by institutes of the In Lumine Network: the Collegium Institute, the Harvard Catholic Forum, COLLIS, the Saint Anselm Institute, and the Lumen Christi Institute

Peter Casarella was appointed to the faculty of Duke Divinity School in 2020. His primary field of study is systematic theology followed by world religions and world church. Before joining Duke, he was an associate professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame from 2013-2020 and served as director of the Latin American North American Church Concerns (LANACC) project in the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. He served as professor of Catholic Studies from 2007-2013 at DePaul University, where he was also the founding director of the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology. He has published ninety-one essays in scholarly journals or books on a variety of topics including medieval Christian Neoplatonism, contemporary theological aesthetics, intercultural thought, and the Hispanic/Latino presence in the U.S. Catholic Church.

Paul Scherz is an Associate Professor at the University of Virginia. His main area of study is the intersection of religious ethics with science, technology, and medicine. He also researched the influence of the Stoic tradition of virtue ethics on Christian ethics, especially Catholic moral theology. His first book, Science and Christian Ethics (Cambridge, 2019) used virtue theory as a lens to examine the moral formation of scientists in light of the contemporary replication crisis in science. His most recent book, Tomorrow’s Troubles: Risk, Anxiety, and Prudence in an Age of Algorithmic Governance (Georgetown, 2022), examines the role that quantitative risk analysis plays in contemporary practical reason and social practice in areas such as direct-to-consumer genetic testing, risk-reducing medications, the use of algorithms in social media, and contemporary governance. He compares these attempts to control future dangers with classical understandings of prudence and Christian calls to avoid excessive anxiety over the future.

He has also written on many topics in bioethics, such as human enhancement, genetic technology, and end of life ethics, with this latter interest leading to a volume co-edited with Joseph Davis on The Evening of Life: The Challenges of Aging and Dying Well (Notre Dame, 2020). He is currently working on projects on the ethics of the use of artificial intelligence in medicine and a book on the ethics of precision medicine.