How do we reoccupy shared reality?

At this week's Round Table, Kenisha and Jack spoke with Dr. Aaron Mckain, executive director of The Institute for Digital Humanity, and students Philip Graham and Richard Leyva about how to navigate new emerging technology like Artificial Intelligence and how to use these technologies for good rather than letting them further polarize and antagonize our political process. The Institute for Digital Humanity is a multi-faith, human-focused, bipartisan, and student-run think tank based in downtown Minneapolis. They are passionate about advocating for civil rights issues connected to advances in technology and to fighting against the improper use of algorithms. Dr. Mckain shared four main challenges that all of this digital technology presens to our lives: AI ethics and unreliability, filter bubbles and misinformation, hate speech vs. free speech, and privacy. With the rising prominence of ChatGPT, these brewing challenges are crystal clear. According to Dr. Mckain, ChatGPT is “a robot spitting out a bad book report.” As ChatGPT gets “smarter” and smarter—and becomes the coin of the realm—there is all sorts of scientific and ethical knowledge about the world that’s going to be misinterpreted, making it easier for injustices to be obscured from the news. Looking ahead, our guests expressed concern about ChatGPT having a lasting negative impact on the younger generations. Youth may start to “humanize” this software, expecting it to satisfy core human needs that technology never will. This amplifies the value of centering our connections, communications, and relationships with other human beings. Thank you for listening!