1999 saw the debut of the extremely popular science fiction dystopian “The Matrix.” N. Katherine Hales “How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Organizations of Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics” is a groundbreaking criticism of the changing relationships between humanity and technology.
More than 25 years later, she brings her latest insights to San Diego State University as an opening speaker at the College of Arts.
Since 1999, Hayles has written over 100 articles on humanity, culture and technology that extends to exponential advances in technology, books, and more recently, to the fascinating evolution of humanity in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Hales is a well-known professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Professor Emelita, Professor of James B. Duke at Duke University.
In her new book, “AI to Bacteria: Human Future Through Our Nonhuman Symbolics,” Hales develops a new theory of mind called the integrated cognitive framework or ICF, and outlines how to outline meaning in humans, animals, and several forms of artificial intelligence.
“Part of my appeal to AI in the form of large-scale language models is my surprise that we have a machine that allows us to speak to us in our own language,” Hales said. ” There is a big debate in the AI field about how these messages should be interpreted. Some argue that they are probabilistic sequences that have no meaning other than what we project onto them.
“My own position, now a minority view, is that these artificial intelligences have produced billions and billions of correlations from the human-written texts they read, and also formed networks between these correlations and inferred as a result of these networks.”
Her conclusion is the starting point for a joint conversation with Rita RoryUC Santa Barbara English Professor and a leading thinker learning from an AI/humanities perspective, Monday, March 24th at 4:30pm at the University Library’s Digital Humanities Center. This was carried out in collaboration with “Science and Humanities: The Intertwining of the Age of AI.” SDSU Digital HumanitiesStarts multiple years of Cal hūmtech Leadership.
“In an age of increasingly narrow and obsessed with the possibilities of computing and AI, Cal’s Hūmtech is focusing on deeper and more important questions. We ask not only what technology is, what it can do, but how, when, why should we use it, and what the long-term outcomes of doing so,” Cal Dean said. Todd Butler.
Designed like an artistic season, Hūmtech will carry out collective conversations, encourage research collaboration, and support students’ learning. It encourages the delivery of innovative courses that amplify student opportunities and integrate emerging technologies with deep environmental, ethics, culture, policy, awareness and identity considerations.
“Kate Hales changed my life with her guidance and I know I’m not alone,” the British professor said. Jessica Pressmanco-founder of the Digital Humanities Initiative and a student at UCLA’s Hayles. “She paved the way of thinking about digital technology not as opposed to literature, as collaborative, generative, poetic, or as part of her literary research, not as terror or view. All of my education and scholarships I share with SDSU students every day are inspired and informed by Hales.”
Additional information about Hūmtech You can find it online.
