Coping with AI in our Communities

Current research on problems of coping with AI is the subject of four weekly forums, Oct. 25 through November 15. Speakers will explore both local and global challenges and emerging strategies for responding in our own lives and communities.

Advanced AI systems are behaving increasingly less like obedient tools and more like insubordinate employees, independent agents, threatening competitors, and manipulators. As they spread throughout our society, how can we benefit from helpful AI while safeguarding our families, companies, and communities? How can we keep our futures human? Researchers and companies have been trying to engineer control over AI machines while at the same time trying to make them dramatically more capable at engineering than humans are. This forum explores alternative approaches drawing on peace studies, human ecology, and diverse spiritual and faith traditions.

The themes for the four forums are:

• October 25: Challenges and Strategies for Coping with AI in Peaceful, Ecological, Spiritual Ways
• November 1: Negotiating our Futures with AI: A Peace Studies Approach
• November 8: Reclaiming Our Digital Commons in Maine: Human-Ecological Approaches to Community Empowerment
• November 15: A Catholic, a Quaker, and a Buddhist Walk into an AI Chat: Spiritual Approaches to AI

The series is free and open to all. Sessions are held on Sundays at 6 p.m. in Room 102 of the Center for Human Ecology and streamed live via zoom at: https://coa.zoom.us/j/3613430016 (Meeting ID: 361 343 0016). For further information, contact [email protected] or 207-460-1163.