A conversation with Kevin T. Baker, Sophia Goodfriend, and Benjamin Recht, moderated by Lily Hu.

In this online event, Boston Review contributing editor Lily Hu moderates a conversation with three prominent writers about the way AI is changing the way societies, individuals, and governments make decisions. The panelists will discuss the nature and meaning of rationality, how new technology is interfacing with old institutions, what popular AI discourses get wrong, and the consequences for politics, war, and social life in general.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Kevin T. Baker is a researcher, editor, and sometimes programmer interested in the history of computers, simulation, and artificial intelligence in public life. His latest essay, “AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is far more worrying,” appeared in The Guardian. He writes the Artificial Bureaucracy newsletter on Substack.

Sophia Goodfriend, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge's Pembroke College and a nonresident fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative, writes widely on automation and warfare. Her latest essay for Boston Review is “The New Old Warfare.”

Benjamin Recht is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. His latest book is The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us. He writes the arg min newsletter on Substack.

Lily Hu, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Yale, writes on statistics, AI, and the social sciences. Her latest essay for Boston Review, where she serves as a contributing editor, is “How to Lie with (Political) Statistics.”

ABOUT BOSTON REVIEW

Boston Review is a magazine of ideas, politics, and culture. Independent and nonprofit since 1975, we believe in the power of collective reasoning and imagination to create a more just world. Our essays, book reviews, criticism, and analysis take a special interest in matters of injustice, from war, poverty, and mass incarceration to the many faces of inequality and threats to democracy and human rights. 

Our 50-year archive includes work by leading writers, intellectuals, and activists, including Noam Chomsky, Susan Sontag, Vivian Gornick, Martha Nussbaum, Elaine Scarry, Arundhati Roy, John Kenneth Galbraith, Robin D. G. Kelley, Pankaj Mishra, Eqbal Ahmad, Sadiq Al-Azm, Seyla Benhabib, Jhumpa Lahiri, Christopher Hitchens, Cornel West, Elias Khoury, Nancy Fraser, Frances Fox Piven, Staughton Lynd, Manning Marable, Sarah Schulman, and Adrienne Rich, among many others.

DETAILS

This event is free and open to the public. But when you register, please consider making a small contribution of $15—or any amount you can donate—to help fund future events like this and the work of Boston Review. Event registrants will be added to our email newsletter list.