Shannon Vallor: ‘The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking’

How can we find the balance between giving our humanity over to AI and fearfully opposing it? What are the ethical questions we should be asking now? And where does our agency in all this begin and end? Shannon Vallor will be joining Jeremy Carrette to answer some of these questions raised in her astounding new book, ‘The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking’. Join us for what is sure to be a fascinating and philosophical journey into Vallor’s expertise on AI, robotics, and data science, and how these significantly reshape human moral character, habits, and practices.

Prof. Shannon Vallor is a former Visiting Researcher and AI Ethicist at Google, and the current Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) at the University of Edinburgh, where she is also appointed in Philosophy. She is Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures, and co-Director of BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides), and is a standing member of the One Hundred Year Study of Artificial Intelligence (AI100) and Oversight Board of the Ada Lovelace Institute. She received the 2015 World Technology Award in Ethics from the World Technology Network and the 2022 Covey Award from the International Association of Computing and Philosophy. In addition to many articles, she is the author of ‘Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting’ (OUP, 2016) and ‘The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking’ (OUP, 2024).

Jeremy Carrette is Head of the School of Divinity and Professor of Philosophy, Religion and Culture at the University of Edinburgh. He has published extensively on Michel Foucault, including ‘Michel Foucault and Religion’ (Routledge, 2000) and, with James Bernauer, ‘Michel Foucault and Theology’ (Ashgate, 2004). He has also published widely on William James, including editing, with Eugene Taylor, the centenary edition of ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’ (Routledge, 2002). His present work includes a study of William James’s pragmatic theory of love, a 20th anniversary edition of his study with Richard King, ‘Selling Spirituality’ (Routledge, 2005), and a project on William Temple, Anglicanism and the environment.