On Tuesday 17 April Prof John Lennox will be talking at The Festival of Though, an event at the NWU hosted by the NWU Faculty of Theology in cooperation with the Faith and Science Research Group (Natural sciences, Engineering, Philosophy and Theology), in collaboration with Radio Christi.
Cities are getting smarter. We are rapidly developing the processing power to get useful information out of vast amounts of data. Great strides are being made in the area of artificial intelligence and robotics. Ray Kurzweil thinks that robots will be considered conscious and take over most human tasks by 2030.
Elon Musk thinks that AI is ‘summoning the demon’ and Stephen Hawking feared that ‘AI may replace humanity altogether’. He called for technology to be controlled to avoid it destroying the human race.
The Director of Cambridge University’s centre for the study of existential risk said this year: “We live in a world that could become fraught with … hazards from the misuse of AI and we need to take ownership of the problems for the risks are real”
Is there any hope for a ‘smart ethics’ to enable us to navigate the flood of ethical questions generated by smart cities – particularly in the areas of privacy and control? And what status are we going to give to ever increasingly sophisticated robots? What in the end is the difference between a human and a machine? Is there any? Does it matter?
Come find out more on 17 April on the NWU’s Potchefstroom campus where Prof John Lennox will be talking about the following topics:
Smart Cities – Smart Ethics (12:00 – 14:00 at the Sanlam Auditorium)
Cosmic Chemistry – Do science and God mix? (19:00 – 21:00 at the Amphi Theatre)
