This lecture addresses the potential links between AI and religious belief, which include the question of whether an artificial “superintelligence”, were one to arise, would be well-disposed towards us. Religious traditions historically assume that creations are well disposed to those who made them.
The lecture also looks at the recent US cults claiming to be ready to worship such a “super-intelligence”, if and when it emerges, as well as other futurist discourse on “Transhumanism” and its roots in 18th-century rationalism.
Click here for further information on all Gresham lectures during the COVID-19 pandemic
Yorick Wilks is Visiting Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Gresham College. He is also Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Sheffield, a Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, and a Senior Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. Professor Wilks is especially interested in the fields of artificial intelligence and the computer processing of language, knowledge and belief. His current research focuses on the possibility of software agents having identifiable personalities.
Professor Wilks's lecture series are as follows:
2019/20 The State of Artificial Intelligence: War, Ethics and Religion
2018/19 The State of Artificial Intelligence: Hype vs Progress
All lectures by the Visiting Professor of Artificial Intelligence can be accessed here.
Current Visiting Professor of Information Technology
