AI & THE CHURCH SUMMIT: NAVIGATING THE ETHICAL FRONTIER; Virginia Theological Seminary, June 4, 2024

Virginia Theological Seminary; AI & THE CHURCH SUMMIT: NAVIGATING THE ETHICAL FRONTIER

"As Artificial Intelligence (AI) rapidly permeates our world, the church must grapple with its profound implications or we risk being caught behind the curve.

The AI & The Church Summit, a joint initiative of TryTank, Presbyterian Church (USA), and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), will foster crucial dialogue on this pivotal issue. The summit – to be held August 12-15 in Seattle, WA—will explore AI’s potential to address global challenges while critically examining ethical dilemmas like exacerbating inequality and threats to human dignity. We simply cannot shrink from the church’s role in advocating for ethical, human-centered AI development that protects the vulnerable.

Keynote speaker Father Paolo Benanti, the Vatican’s AI ethics advisor, will guide our conversation. His extensive work with Pope Francis positions him uniquely to address the need for global AI governance serving humanity’s interests. We will also have expert engagement, reflection, and dialogue, as we delve into AI’s moral, theological, and societal impacts.

Critically, this invitation-only event seeds ongoing collaboration. Each denomination will send 15 leaders committed to sustaining momentum through monthly discussions after the summit. The AI & The Church Summit presents a pivotal opportunity to envision an ethical AI future upholding human dignity. Let us lead this frontier.

Find out more to join us here.

The Rev. Lorenzo Lebrija, DMin, MBA
Chief Innovation Officer, VTS
Executive Director, TryTank Research Institute"

A Broad Look at Broadband; American Libraries, March 1, 2022

American Libraries ; A Broad Look at Broadband

What high-speed internet access and affordability look like around the country

"Why Access Is Important. During the pandemic, technology has been a lifeline: 9 in 10 Americans said the internet has been essential or important to them over the past two years. But for those who lack digital access, inequality has widened. Without the internet, people are more likely to miss out on the ability to work, find a job, bank, participate in telemedicine, and do schoolwork, not to mention maintain social connections with friends and family. Affordability and availability are key factors for why people lack access."

Want to Reverse Inequality? Change Intellectual Property Rules.; The Nation, February 8, 2021

Dean Baker, February 8, 2021; Want to Reverse Inequality? Change Intellectual Property Rules.

Changes in IP have done far more than tax cuts to increase inequality—and US protection of IP could lead to a cold war with China.

"While the Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump tax cuts all gave more money to the rich, policy changes in other areas, especially intellectual property have done far more to redistribute income upward. In the past four decades, a wide array of changes—under both Democratic and Republican presidents—made patent and copyright protection both longer and stronger."

Software that monitors students during tests perpetuates inequality and violates their privacy; MIT Technology Review, August 7, 2020

• Shea Swaugerarchive page

, The New York Times; 

Software that monitors students during tests perpetuates inequality and violates their privacy

"The coronavirus pandemic has been a boon for the test proctoring industry. About half a dozen companies in the US claim their software can accurately detect and prevent cheating in online tests. Examity, HonorLock, Proctorio,ProctorU, Respondus and others have rapidly grown since colleges and universities switched to remote classes.

While there’s no official tally, it’s reasonable to say that millions of algorithmically proctored tests are happening every month around the world. Proctorio told the New York Times in May that business had increased by 900% during the first few months of the pandemic, to the point where the company proctored 2.5 million tests worldwide in April alone.

I'm a university librarian and I've seen the impacts of these systems up close. My own employer, the University of Colorado Denver, has a contract with Proctorio.

It’s become clear to me that algorithmic proctoring is a modern surveillance technology that reinforces white supremacy, sexism, ableism, and transphobia. The use of these tools is an invasion of students’ privacy and, often, a civil rights violation."

College cheating scandal is the tip of the iceberg; CNN, March 12, 2019

David Perry, CNN; College cheating scandal is the tip of the iceberg

"We're not talking about donating a building, we're talking about fraud," said Andrew Lelling, the US Attorney for Massachusetts, as he announced indictments in a massive scheme alleging that celebrities and other wealthy individuals used cheating, bribes, and lies to get their kids into elite colleges.

The behavior described in this alleged fraud should be punished. But on a broader and more basic level, the case also sheds light on deep inequities in our college admissions system. Because if someone can get their kid into Harvard by buying a building, let alone by committing any of the alleged acts emerging from this case, the scandal isn't just what's illegal, but what's legal as well. "

The AI Arms Race Means We Need AI Ethics; Forbes, January 22, 2019

Kasia Borowska, Forbes; The AI Arms Race Means We Need AI Ethics

"In an AI world, the currency is data. Consumers and citizens trade data for convenience and cheaper services. The likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Netflix and others process this data to make decisions that influence likes, the adverts we see, purchasing decisions or even who we vote for. There are questions to ask on the implications of everything we access, view or read being controlled by a few global elite. There are also major implications if small companies or emerging markets are unable to compete from being priced out of the data pool. This is why access to AI is so important: not only does it enable more positives from AI to come to the fore, but it also helps to prevent monopolies forming. Despite industry-led efforts, there are no internationally agreed ethical rules to regulate the AI market."

How Using A Drone Changed The Way This Photographer Saw Inequality; HuffPost, July 3, 2018

Amanda Duberman, HuffPost;

How Using A Drone Changed The Way This Photographer Saw Inequality

 

"A few years ago, Johnny Miller got a drone. 

The photographer was studying anthropology at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and used his drone to take a video of him and his friends hiking local Table Mountain. Watching the footage he shot, Miller was stunned at how an aerial view gave him a completely different perspective on an area he’d looked at dozens of times. 

“That was the moment when I realized that the drone had this ability and this power to make you see things very differently,” he told HuffPost. “And I wondered if you could look at social issues the same way.”"

Something is not right; Washington Post, May 26, 2017

Ruth Marcus, Washington Post; Something is not right

"In the middle of one night

Miss Clavel turned on the light

And said, “Something is not right!”

— “Madeline,” by Ludwig Bemelmans, 1939...

Something is really not right when all this is done to help pay for trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the richest Americans. When it is built on an edifice of fairy-tale growth projections exacerbated by fraudulent accounting, double-counting savings from this supposed growth.

We are all Miss Clavel now, or should be."

Episode 76: X-Men – “The Dream”; ComicsVerse, June 10, 2016

Justin Gilbert Alba, ComicsVerse; 

Episode 76: X-Men – “The Dream”

"Joined by my friend, ComicsVerse X-Men writer and podcast co-host Marius Thienenkamp, Episode 76 of the ComicsVerse Podcast, “X-Men: The Dream,” explored the significance of the metaphor of the X-Men both in and outside of comics through discussions of race, sexuality, inequality, and “othering” in western civilization.  Podcast panelists Jamie Rice, Kay Honda, Nolan Bensen, and Corey Spanner weighed in on parallels between historical activists like Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Gandhi which lead to conversations about dominant cultural hierarchies and the nature of humanity itself.

X-Men comics and characters are rife with meaning and serve as a mirror of how society treats anyone who is, and feels, different and how those same people cope in a world that hates and fears them. The concept of the X-Men served as a perfect platform during this podcast to embark on an analysis of American culture as a microcosm of human nature and what it ultimately means to be American."

Let's Make 2017 The Year Of Ethics And Morality; Forbes, 12/28/16

Deepali Srivastava, Forbes; Let's Make 2017 The Year Of Ethics And Morality:

"The chronic decline of our political structures and civil society institutions became painfully obvious this year. The election of Donald Trump in the United States and the rise of the far right in Europe are inspiring much soul searching in the West. The problem is just as acute in Asia where the middle class’ growing prosperity is deeply intertwined with worsening inequality, environmental degradation and social unrest.

Yet, I detected another trend in 2016 that fills me with hope for the New Year: the very public embrace by eminent scientists, economists, novelists and even some businesspeople of the role of ethics in society.

Influential people have started espousing the moral philosophy of doing the right thing and are building bridges between spirituality and rationality."

The case against big data: “It’s like you’re being put into a cult, but you don’t actually believe in it”; Salon, 9/8/16

Scott Timberg, Salon; The case against big data: “It’s like you’re being put into a cult, but you don’t actually believe in it” :

"If you’ve ever suspected there was something baleful about our deep trust in data, but lacked the mathematical skills to figure out exactly what it was, this is the book for you: Cathy O’Neil’s “Weapons of Math Destruction” examines college admissions, criminal justice, hiring, getting credit, and other major categories. The book demonstrates how the biases written into algorithms distort society and people’s lives...

Your book looks at how unjust this all is at the level of education, of voting, of finance, of housing. You conclude by saying that the data isn’t going away, and computers are not going to disappear either. There are not many examples of societies that unplugged or dialed back technologically. So what are you hoping can happen? What do we need to do as a society to, to make this more just, and less unfair and invisible?

Great point, because we now have algorithms that can retroactively infer people’s sexual identity based on their Facebook likes from, you know, 2005. We didn’t have it in 2005. So imagine the kind of data exhaust that we’re generating now could likely display weird health risks. The technology might not be here now but it might be here in five years.

The very first answer is that people need to stop trusting mathematics and they need to stop trusting black box algorithms. They need to start thinking to themselves. You know: Who owns this algorithm? What is their goal and is it aligned with mine? If they’re trying to profit off of me, probably the answer is no.

And then they should be able to demand some kind of consumer, or whatever, Bill of Rights for algorithms.

And that would be: Let me see my score, let me look at the data going into that score, let me contest incorrect data. Let me contest unfair data. You shouldn’t be able to use this data against me just because — going back to the criminal justice system — just because I was born in a high crime neighborhood doesn’t mean I should go to jail longer.

We have examples of rules like this . . . anti-discrimination laws, to various kinds of data privacy laws. They were written, typically, in the ’70s. They need to be updated. And expanded for the age of big data.

And then, so finally I want data scientists themselves to stop hiding behind this facade of objectivity. It’s just … it’s over. The game, the game is up."

Two Views On The Jim Crow South And Its Legacy Today; The Diane Rehm Show, 8/10/16

[Podcast] The Diane Rehm Show; Two Views On The Jim Crow South And Its Legacy Today:

"Historian Charles Dew was born in 1937 and grew up in St. Petersburg, Florida. His parents, along with every white person he knew, believed without question in the inherent inferiority of black Americans and in the need for segregation. In a new memoir, “The Making of a Racist,” he describes what he learned as a child and how he gradually overthrew those beliefs. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Isabel Wilkerson details the crushing realities of the Jim Crow South from the other side of the color line. In her 2010 book, “The Warmth of Other Suns,” she documents the migration of black families in the 1930s, 40s and 50s in search of better lives in the North and in the West. Charles Dew and Isabel Wilkerson join us to talk about racism in American, then and now.

Guests

Charles B Dew professor of history, Williams College; author of "The Making of a Racist: A Southerner Reflects on Family, History and the Slave Trade"

Isabel Wilkerson Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; author, "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration"