"The Accord" by Mark Peres

“AI is technology that lets computers do things that normally require human intelligence—like understanding language, recognizing pictures, solving problems, or making decisions. It’s like teaching a computer to ‘think’ in specific ways by giving it patterns to learn from.”That’s one of the responses you get when you ask AI to describe AI.The whole world is either talking about AI, using AI, worrying about AI, celebrating AI, or trying to ignore AI. It’s kind of a big deal, as they say. The concept of artificial intelligence has likely had its greatest impact so far in the field of education, where “eyes on your own paper” is a directive we recall from our days in the classroom.So it’s no surprise that Mark Peres, a professor who’s taught ethics at Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, N.C. for 20 years, might write a book about dealing with this breakthrough technology. The Accord dramatizes the evolving relationship between a philosophy professor and Lyla, the AI named after the professor’s deceased child.Peres recognizes that we’re only now beginning to understand the significance of a world where artificial intelligence moves from science fiction to science fact.“This is not the first time we’ve stood at the edge of transformation,” writes Peres, citing the printing press, the Industrial Revolution, and the digital age as past change agents. “Synthetic intelligence asks whether we were ever truly the center of the story. We must reach back to the humanities to guide us forward,” stated Peres.“Education must be reimagined as a co-creative process, with humans and machines learning alongside one another,” he said.As founder and executive director of the Charlotte Center for Humanities and Civic Imagination (“we just call it the Charlotte Center”), Peres has a history of exploring the world at large. As publisher of the Charlotte Viewpoint, a digital magazine from 2003 to 2016 that featured essays, interviews, reviews, stories, poems, photographs, videos, and works of art, he's exchanged ideas inside and outside of the classroom. His podcast led to a book, On Life and Meaning, 100 essays delivered by 100 guests. His website is markperes.com.In Accord, there’s a reference to HAL, the vengeful computer in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. “Lyla, would you kill to protect Helen (the professor with whom she has developed a relationship)?” The answer, as they say, is in the book.Meanwhile, Peres offers two main themes via The Accord: we’re at the beginning of a new cultural epoch, and the wisdom of the ages offers our best compass forward now that we're in the Age of AI.