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DTSTART:20211107T020000
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UID:calendar.58305.field_date.0@calendar.lafayette.edu
DTSTAMP:20260712T214401Z
DESCRIPTION:*Description:* From Aristotle’s ancient conception of the soul 
 to Ibn \nRushd’s 12th -century analytics of the intellect to the informati
 on theory \nunderlying neural networks\, scholars have queried the agency 
 of things and \nthe relationship between matter and its other (spirit?). D
 oes agency inhere \nin material things? Can an assemblage of machine parts
  be a person? What \ndistinguishes humans from mere objects? In this talk\
 , Sylvester Johnson takes \nup these questions. He proposes that the use o
 f intelligent machines (in the \nform of artificial intelligence or machin
 e-learning applications) for human \nenhancement has crystallized these ag
 e-old conundrums in a new key. Machines \nhave now been successfully engin
 eered to write poetry\, compose music\, make \nmoral decisions\, and even 
 program other machines. More importantly\, military \nefforts to combine h
 umans with intelligent machines are beginning to produce \nfar-reaching co
 nsequences that move beyond scenarios that pit mere humans \nagainst mere 
 machines.  By analyzing the 400-year history of fetishism\, \nJohnson expl
 ains the consequences of current technology innovation that \ncombine huma
 ns with intelligent machines for applications ranging from \nmedical thera
 py to military super-soldiers.\n\nThis talk gives historical depth to cont
 emporary developments in intelligent \nmachine applications and cybernetic
 s. Johnson discusses the prospect new \nframeworks for humans and non-huma
 ns on the horizon\, one that promises to \nexpose the limits of the human 
 as a coherent category while creating new \npossibilities of machine life 
 through\, automated intelligence\, and martial \ntechnologies.\n\nRemote: 
 Register in advance for this meeting: \nhttps://lafayette.zoom.us/meeting/
 register/tJwrcOqgqDsqEtN9Di7l2TOTMNZuj... \n[1] After registering\, you wi
 ll receive a confirmation email containing \ninformation about joining the
  meeting.\n\n*Sylvester A. Johnson*\, the founding director of the Virgini
 a Tech Center for \nHumanities\, is a nationally recognized humanities sch
 olar specializing in the \nstudy of technology\, race\, religion\, and nat
 ional security. He is also \nassistant vice provost for the humanities at 
 Virginia Tech and executive \ndirector of the university’s Tech for Humani
 ty initiative. His \naward-winning scholarship is advancing new approaches
  to understanding the \nhuman condition and social institutions of power i
 n an age of intelligent \nmachines and other forms of technology innovatio
 n. From 2014 to 2017\, Johnson \nled a 20-member team of humanists and tec
 hnologists at Northwestern \nUniversity to develop a successful proof-of-c
 oncept for a machine learning \nsystem that could assist in scholarly rese
 arch of an early English corpus \nusing named-entity recognition and topic
 -modeling. In 2017\, he joined the \nfaculty of Virginia Tech\, where he a
 dvances research at the intersection of \nhumanity and technology.\n\nJohn
 son\, who holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Religion and \n
 Culture\, has authored The Myth of Ham in Nineteenth-Century American \nCh
 ristianity\, a study of race and religious hatred that won the American \n
 Academy of Religion’s Best First Book award\; and African American \nRelig
 ions\, 1500-2000\, an award-winning interpretation of five centuries of \n
 democracy\, colonialism\, and freedom in the Atlantic world. Johnson has a
 lso \nco-edited The FBI and Religion: Faith and National Security Before a
 nd After \n9/11. A founding co-editor of the Journal of Africana Religions
 \, he has \npublished more than 70 scholarly articles\, essays\, and revie
 ws.\n\n \n\n(Information drawn from \nhttps://liberalarts.vt.edu/departmen
 ts-and-schools/department-of-religio \n[2]...)\n\n\n[1] https://lafayette.
 zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwrcOqgqDsqEtN9Di7l2TOTMNZujU2E_IbZ \n[2] https:
 //liberalarts.vt.edu/departments-and-schools/department-of-religio
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20210421T193000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20210421T210000
LAST-MODIFIED:20210421T023118Z
SUMMARY:Will Intelligent Machines Become Human? Religion\, Technology\, and
  the Digital \nFuture of Humanity
URL;TYPE=URI:https://calendar.lafayette.edu/node/58305
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