Sidelining Sentience

If sentience means "having senses," then your floodlights that turn on when someone walks by are sentient. But if floodlights are sentient, maybe sentience isn't quite the right word.

The intro and outro music is from Domenico Gabrielli's ricercar, performed on solo cello by Debbie Davis

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About the Podcast

aideas

Using philosophy, science fiction, and games to think about AI

Halfway between poetry and mathematics, AIdeas brings you the concepts from philosophy and science fiction which make sense of AI - and the concepts from AI which will help you understand the philosophy of thinking.
Please believe in other minds.

About your host

Graham Culbertson

Graham Culbertson is a teaching assistant professor of English at UNC-Chapel Hill. He has taught courses in AI, science fiction, ethics, and film at the collegiate and high school level. His AI in Science Fiction course, developed as part of North Carolina School of Science Math’s Ryden Program in Innovation and Leadership in AI , was shared with high schools across North Carolina through the AI for Teachers website.

Graham recently worked with NCSSM's Ryden Program to create two new courses, AI in Science Fiction and Ethics of AI. These courses allowed students to use philosophy and literature to explore contemporary and far-future issues related to machine learning. Students in those classes composed everything from Platonic dialogues on ethics to position papers on public policy to memes that used science fiction imagery to explain key concepts in AI.

Graham holds a Ph.D. in American Literature and Culture from UNC-Chapel Hill. His dissertation traced various ideas about evolution , modernity, and progress that shaped the development of American cities in the Gilded Age . He has been teaching since 2006.