A Discussion of Artificial Intelligence with John Searle and Luciano Floridi

On 20–21 October 2016 The New York Review of Books Foundation and Fritt Ord hosted the conference ‘Technology and the Human Future.’ Full programme and list of panelists here: http://www.frittord.no/arrangementer/... Panel 5 A Discussion of Artificial Intelligence Chair: Simon Head, University of Oxford, New York University, and the New York Review of Books Foundation John Searle, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley Luciano Floridi, Director of Research, Oxford Internet Institute, Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information, University of Oxford JOHN SEARLE is Slusser Professor Emeritus of the Philosophy of Mind and Language at the University of California, Berkeley, and a winner of the US National Humanities Medal, 2004. He is the author of Seeing Things As They Are: A Theory of Perception (2015) and of The Making of The Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization (2010). LUCIANO FLORIDI is Director of Research at the Oxford Internet Institute and Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at Oxford University. He is the author of The Fourth Revolution: How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality (2014). About the Conference: With the coming of what we’re calling ‘pervasive internet access’ is there evidence that the quality of our life experiences are becoming attenuated and fragmented, undergoing mutations which point to changes in what it means to be human? Does the capture, classification and use by businesses of Big Data yielded by our Internet lives have a legitimate role in adding to consumer convenience and choice; and at what point does this ‘reality mining’ bring unacceptable violations of privacy? Does the combined use of these technologies in the workplace risk overwhelming employees with panoptic regimes of surveillance which may not only be an affront to their human dignity, but also obstacles to human creativity and so, ironically, enemies of the very employee productivity which between them the systems are meant to enhance?