Recent concerns about the long-term implications of artificial intelligence apps like Chat GPT have prompted journalists, academics and entrepreneurs to seek a temporary halt to the training of AIs saying “AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity.” In this Forum, we consider the direct and also unseen impacts of utilizing a tool that has yet to be regulated or even fully understood.
Gary Marcus, scientist, entrepreneur, and author of “Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence we can trust” is Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU and host of the podcast Humans versus Machines. Jane Rosenzweig is Director of the Harvard Writing Center, freelance writer and author of Writing Hacks newsletter. Wesley Wildman is a Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics + Computing & Data Sciences at Boston University.. Andrew Kimble, Director of Online Lifelong Learning at BU School of Theology, will act as moderator.
Resources
The moratorim explained - Thehindu.com
Guy Marcus’ podcast
Jane Rosenzweig’s article in the boston Globe about what we lose when machines do the writing (published before ChatGPT was released)
Jane Rosenzweig’s newsletter
Would AI replace jobs? From the BBC
Article on CDS Policy on Generative AI Assistance (GAIA) in courses
BU GAIA Policy
Wesley’s research center: The center for Mind and Culture
ChatGPT and large language model bias (cbsnews)
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BIO: Gary Marcus
GARY MARCUS is a leading voice in artificial intelligence. He is a scientist, best-selling author, and serial entrepreneur (Founder of Robust.AI and Geometric.AI, acquired by Uber). He is well-known for his challenges to contemporary AI, anticipating many of the current limitations decades in advance, and for his research in human language development and cognitive neuroscience.
An Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Neural Science at NYU, he is the author of five books, including, The Algebraic Mind, Kluge, The Birth of the Mind, and the New York Times Bestseller Guitar Zero. He has often contributed to The New Yorker, Wired, and The New York Times. His most recent book, Rebooting AI, with Ernest Davis, is one of Forbes’s 7 Must Read Books in AI.
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BIO: Jane Rosenzweig
“I see writing as thinking, so when I ask my students to write a paper, I’m not asking them to produce a product the way that ChatGPT produces a product. I’m asking them to go through a process–to have an experience. I want them to read and think critically, to consider evidence, and to figure out what they think. If AI is producing that product, then we may not be giving students the space to become critical thinkers or to figure out what they think.”
Rosenzweig teaches writing and editing courses at Harvard College and Harvard Extension School. She has been a staff editor at the Atlantic Monthly and a member of the fiction staff at the New Yorker. Her work has appeared in the NYT, Harvard Business Review, the Boston Globe and other publications, including the May Anthology of Oxford and Cambridge Short Stories. She is author of the Writing Hacks newsletter.
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BIO: Wesley Wildman
Dr. Wildman teaches Data, Society and Ethics—a course that develops students’ ability to critically examine and question the interplay between data science and computational technologies on the one hand, and society and public policy on the other. Students engage in and complete exercises to demonstrate their facility with key ethics tools and techniques, and analyze a series of real-world case studies—including creating course policy for use of ChatGPT—presented alongside ethical tools and analyses that are useful both for staying alert to emerging ethical challenges and responding to them as they arise in both employment settings and everyday life.
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BIO: Andrew Kimble
Andrew Kimble is Associate Director of Alumni & Donor Relations and Director of Online Lifelong Learning at Boston University School of Theology.
Andrew brings highly valued experience from his leadership roles at Boston University and the local community and is a strategic thinker and talented public speaker. A bridge-builder, Andrew is invested in sustaining collaborative partnerships between the academy and communities of moral discernment. In his free time, Andrew enjoys listening to live jazz, running outdoors, visiting the used book section in local bookstores, and spending time with friends & family.
