Grace Forum Online with Linda Kinstler

Artificial intelligence is embedded in our everyday lives: It influences which streets we walk down, which clothes we buy, which articles we read, whom we date and where and how we choose to live. It is ubiquitous, yet it remains obscure. Amid increasing scrutiny of technology's role in everything from policing to politics, "ethics" has become an industry safe word, but no one seems to agree on what these ethics are. How are the teams working on A.I. determining what kinds of ethics and principles to pursue? What sets humans apart from machines? Is the development of A.I. changing us? Can A.I. teach us anything about what it means to be human?  Linda Kinstler, a journalist and Ph.D candidate in the Rhetoric Department at U.C. Berkeley, has been reporting on the relationship between the digital and the divine for over a year and has had dozens of conversations with religious leaders, programmers and believers of all faiths about how our devices are indeterminately altering our interior lives.  Join Dean Malcolm Clemens Young for a conversation with Ms. Kinstler about ethics in technology, the question of what makes us human and the future of mankind. READ Linda Kinstler's essay in the New York Times: Can Silicon Valley Find God?   READ Isaac Asimov's favorite of his stories, The Last Question