Harvard University’s Spring 2024 semester begins with a university-wide event aimed at increasing your ability to engage in respectful and robust debate.
Forget about Botox. Harrison Ford, now 81 years old, spent 40 years working on “Indiana Jones and the Dial,” which will be released in 2023 using artificial intelligence.
The movie star discussed the process of digital aging in a video viewed by hundreds of students, faculty and staff Wednesday night at Sanders Theater. “Hard Questions: Ethics in the Age of AI,” hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Civil Discourse Initiative, is part of the “Harvard Dialogues,” a series of workshops, conversations, and panels aimed at fostering more productive dialogue about Harvard University. ” was the highlight event. To the campus and beyond.
“Does it bother you? Does it make you anxious?” asked moderator Michael J. Sandel, professors Ann T. Bass and Robert M. Bass. “Or do you think it’s okay?” Sandel’s popular course, “Justice,” encourages the honest expression of diverse opinions and is widely seen as a kind of authority on respectful speech. There is.
Craig McFarland ’25, a double concentration in neuroscience and philosophy, was the first to stand up and speak out.
“This is concerning to me because it reinforces the status quo of promoting youth and making youth the standard of beauty,” McFarland argued. “Aging starts to seem like something bad is going on.”
Sandel took some time to seek input from technology advocates, but quickly returned to McFarland. What if a filmmaker wants to make a young actor look older? Sandel asked. “Is it okay to extend the years using digital aging? Is it wrong to subtract the years?”
When thinking about the ethics of AI, Sandel told the audience there are four common concerns. One has to do with computers stealing people’s jobs, and the other has to do with computers amplifying human biases. A third common objection concerns privacy, and a fourth concerns the decline of democracy.
“Tonight, I would like to explore with you additional concerns,” he said. “And it actually takes the form of a question: Will technology change what it means to be human?”
Over the course of 75 minutes, Sandel’s talent for asking thought-provoking questions and eliciting thought-provoking answers was on full display. In another video clip, “Black Panther” star Michael B. Jordan tells Sandel he doesn’t like the idea of bringing back his movie actors, such as mid-century master Sidney Poitier, with the help of AI technology. He said he felt pleasure. “That’s not a man’s free will,” Jordan complained.
But what if Poitier had agreed? Sandel wondered.
Jordan suggested he would still find it troubling.
“Okay, then there must be another reason beyond his consent,” Sandel pressed. “What is the reason?”
Jordan narrowed his eyes, searching himself for the exact answer. “There’s just no real feel to it,” he says at last.
Rakesh Khurana, Harvard’s Danoff Dean, opened the event with the news that Justice would be offered in the fall after a hiatus (although the course will continue to exist via a free pre-recorded version). ing). Khurana also praised Sandel’s decades-long commitment to encouraging Harvard students to engage meaningfully with important issues. “He invites us to see ourselves not as individuals learning a skill, but as part of a community of interpreters, a community of people speaking to each other,” Khurana said from the stage. .
After the event, a group of fellows from the Edmond and Lily Safra Center carried the spirit to the campus cafeteria. At Annenberg, her Value Engagement fellows paired several of her first-year students with a group of Harvard Kennedy School students. Together, they worked on Sandel’s final conversation, the one that started the night: “Which do you trust more: a dating app or your mother to find your future life partner?”
“When you trust an AI matchmaker, there is an implicit belief that love is rational,” said Emmanuel Edwards, 27, who had full trust in his mother. On the tray next to his dinner was Sandel’s The Tyrant of Merit (2020).
“What if we had data on millions of successful couples?” Chuchu Zhang ’27 describes herself as “not a pushover.” A minute later, she started talking about the possibility of an AI matchmaker that would aggregate huge amounts of data and be able to know how she would react in any situation.
This sparked opposition from HKS student David Riveros García, who questioned the wisdom of allowing such access to his inner self. “It’s like giving omniscience, omniscience,” he said with a smile. “Are you a god?”
