Jack Trammell, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice and Human Services, examined changes society can anticipate as artificial intelligence is integrated into more facets of our lives. Trammell dove into this dilemma in his talk titled “Two’s Company, Three’s a Crowd: The Impact of A.I. on Classical Social Theory.” Assistant Professor of Theology Roberto de la Noval, Ph.D., welcomed everyone in a packed Laughlin Auditorium and expressed how excited he was to kick off the conversation about AI at the Mount.
Recognizing the interest in this topic from students across the university, Trammell started with the basics of explaining sociology and classic social theories, giving special attention to Georg Simmel. Simmel wrote extensively on groups, particularly the strength of dyads and triads. In triads, or a group of three, much stronger bonds form because disagreements could have mediators and third-party perspectives.
With this foundation, the audience was placed in a coffee house situation and was presented with a scorecard of 10 points on fundamental aspects of interacting with someone. These points included agency to guide conversation, freedom to stay or leave, share food and drink. Taking these points, Trammell applied them to characters like a raccoon or a picture of Richard III and finally artificial intelligence.
When classifying AI, many unknowns remain and philosophical questions arise. Trammell argued that AI couldn’t play with technology, but we can play online chess against a bot. He also said AI couldn’t guide the conversation, but we often heed the warnings of the thin red and blue lines in our Microsoft Word documents calling us to revise a structure that we have taught the machine to understand. Social media algorithms have created taboos and given rise to words like ‘unalived’ instead of ‘killed’ or ‘dead’. Influencers want to reach as many people as possible and algorithms now help determine viral music, vernacular, filters, TV shows, books and more.
After this brief presentation, Trammell left a large part of the lecture for students and faculty to ask questions and engage in a dialogue. The discussion homed in on loneliness and finding companionship in AI by discussing icons like Hatsune Miku, a fictional character and virtual pop star who has performed alongside Lady Gaga and the intimate bonds that people have created with virtual characters. The room swayed back and forth on whether this was something that we should applaud for reducing loneliness or fear because people are avoiding each other for the predictability of AI.
The lecture achieved its purpose of piquing the campus’ interest in the realm of AI and inspiring the use and research of burgeoning technologies like this across campus. In further discussions across campus and beyond, Katherine Elkins of Kenyon College gave a lecture on AI and the humanities and Theology Department Chair Luis Vera, Ph.D., presented at the Grefenstette Tech Ethics Symposium on November 9 and 10 on two panels debating AI’s place in religious debates.