College of Liberal Arts
Exploring AI Through Philosophy
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The UAF Department of Philosophy and Humanities invites the community to a two-part lecture series exploring the philosophical dimensions of artificial intelligence on March 27 and April 3. These events bring together faculty perspectives on how AI is reshaping our understanding of language, knowledge, and what it means to think, pairing contemporary questions about emerging technologies with enduring philosophical inquiry. From reimagining language as a living system to revisiting Plato’s ideas about knowledge in a digital age, the series offers a space to step back and critically engage with the ideas shaping our AI-driven world.
Philosophy at UAF
At UAF, philosophy invites students to ask big questions—about knowledge, meaning, ethics, and what it means to be human. The Department of Philosophy and Humanities fosters critical thinking through discussion, close reading, and engagement with ideas that continue to shape how we understand the world.
Dr. Eduardo Wilner
The thinking capacities of recent AI systems are astonishing. Even more astonishing is that they emerge from language alone. This lecture explores a radical reframing: that language is not merely a tool we use, but a memetic organism—a creature that co-evolved with the human brain. If so, then embedding this creature in super-efficient learning machines may force us to rethink not only AI, but what we ourselves are.
This event is free and open to the public.
Dr. Seth Jones
As contemporary society becomes increasingly dependent on AI for answers to everyday questions, it is worth taking a step back and considering why we value knowledge in the first place. Plato's 2400-year-old dialogues have some surprisingly useful answers.
