Come join the Morrow Adult Discussion Group on Sundays at 9:30. All are welcome--
We're going to be featuring John C. Havens as a guest speaker--he's going
to be presenting for the next 3 weeks, beginning with an overview of his new book, Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing our Humanity to Maximize Machines which comes out from Penguin Publishers on February 2nd (John is also going to be doing a book reading at Words Bookstore on Thursday, February 4th at 7:30 if you're free).
I've included a write up about John's book and his bio below, and please note - the class is not a pitch to buy John's book. While he's using it as the basis for Week One's content, our goal is to provide a forum for discussion around emerging technology and culture and how that affects our faith and relationships overall. Hope to see you there!
SUMMARY: Algorithms will soon know more about us than we know ourselves.
Where should machine automation end? Is it acceptable to have a digital assistant arrange your calendar, but not to have a robot spouse? Are companion robots acceptable for seniors in need of comfort, but not okay for toddlers exposed to emotional software that could influence their behavior? Is it desirable to live a life within the virtual reality of Facebook’s Oculus Rift, but not if your thoughts are sold to advertisers who manipulate your purchases?
We’ve entered an era where a myriad of personalization algorithms influence our every decision, and the lines between human assistance, automation, and extinction have blurred. We need to create ethical standards for the Artificial Intelligence usurping our lives, and allow individuals to control their identity based on their values. Otherwise, we sacrifice our humanity for productivity versus purpose and for profits versus people.
Featuring pragmatic solutions drawing on economics, emerging technologies, and positive psychology, Heartificial Intelligence provides the first values-driven approach to algorithmic living—a definitive roadmap to help humanity embrace the present and positively define their future. Each chapter opens with a fictional vignette, helping readers imagine how they would respond to various Artificial Intelligence scenarios while demonstrating the need to codify their values, as the algorithms dominating society today are already doing.
Funny, poignant, and accessible, this book paints a vivid portrait of how our lives might look in either a dystopia of robotic and corporate dominance, or a utopia where humans use technology to enhance our natural abilities to evolve into a long-lived, super-intelligent, and altruistic species.
John C. Havens, human journalist, is author of, Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity to Maximize Machines (Tarcher/Penguin, 2016) and Hacking H(app)iness - Why Your Personal Data Counts and How Tracking it Can Change The World (Tarcher/Penguin, 2014). His work has appeared in Mashable, The Guardian, Slate, Fast Company, TechCrunch and The Huffington Post. John is also the founder of The H(app)athon Project, a non-profit foundation utilizing emerging technology and positive psychology to increase human wellbeing. He tweets @johnchavens.
Come join the Morrow Adult Discussion Group on Sundays at 9:30. All are welcome--
We're going to be featuring John C. Havens as a guest speaker--he's going
to be presenting for the next 3 weeks, beginning
with an overview of his new book, Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing
our Humanity to Maximize Machines which comes out from Penguin
Publishers on February 2nd (John is also going to be doing a book
reading at Words Bookstore on Thursday, February 4th at 7:30 if you're
free).
I've included a write up about John's book and his bio below,
and please note - the class is not a pitch to buy John's book. While
he's using it as the basis for Week One's content, our goal is to
provide a forum for discussion around emerging technology and culture
and how that affects our faith and relationships overall.
Hope to see you there!
SUMMARY:
Algorithms will soon know more about us than we know ourselves.
Where should machine automation end? Is it acceptable to have a digital
assistant arrange your calendar, but not to have a robot spouse? Are
companion robots acceptable for seniors in need of comfort, but not okay
for toddlers exposed to emotional software that could influence their
behavior? Is it desirable to live a life within the virtual reality of
Facebook’s Oculus Rift, but not if your thoughts are sold to advertisers
who manipulate your purchases?
We’ve entered an era where a
myriad of personalization algorithms influence our every decision, and
the lines between human assistance, automation, and extinction have
blurred. We need to create ethical standards for the Artificial
Intelligence usurping our lives, and allow individuals to control their
identity based on their values. Otherwise, we sacrifice our humanity for
productivity versus purpose and for profits versus people.
Featuring pragmatic solutions drawing on economics, emerging
technologies, and positive psychology, Heartificial Intelligence
provides the first values-driven approach to algorithmic living—a
definitive roadmap to help humanity embrace the present and positively
define their future. Each chapter opens with a fictional vignette,
helping readers imagine how they would respond to various Artificial
Intelligence scenarios while demonstrating the need to codify their
values, as the algorithms dominating society today are already doing.
Funny, poignant, and accessible, this book paints a vivid portrait of
how our lives might look in either a dystopia of robotic and corporate
dominance, or a utopia where humans use technology to enhance our
natural abilities to evolve into a long-lived, super-intelligent, and
altruistic species.
John C. Havens, human journalist, is author
of, Heartificial Intelligence: Embracing Our Humanity to Maximize
Machines (Tarcher/Penguin, 2016) and Hacking H(app)iness - Why Your
Personal Data Counts and How Tracking it Can Change The World
(Tarcher/Penguin, 2014). His work has appeared in Mashable, The
Guardian, Slate, Fast Company, TechCrunch and The Huffington Post. John
is also the founder of The H(app)athon Project, a non-profit foundation
utilizing emerging technology and positive psychology to increase human
wellbeing. He tweets @johnchavens.