Future alternatives—and cautions
On the primary day, two keynote addresses had been introduced to stimulate discussions in smaller teams on methodologies, communication, and applied sciences.
Dr George Zarkadakis spoke on “Gods, Robots, and Principle of Thoughts: How AI is not like the rest we made.” Creator of fiction and nonfiction books, he is additionally chief innovation officer of Syndesis Well being Inc., a healthcare knowledge and AI firm. He holds a PhD in AI in Drugs.
Zarkadakis mentioned: “The concept inanimate objects might possess company, and certainly a thoughts, is very a lot older than the beginning of AI within the twentieth century.”
In his speak, Zarkadakis traced the seismic waves of that evolutionary singularity from its prehistoric origins to the fashionable period and argued that our quest for machines that assume is deeper and extra profound than mere utilitarianism. “AI is a expertise that may remould our species right into a meta-species that transcends bodily boundaries,” he mentioned. “In essence, this implies people buying god-like options and skills.”
He famous that ideas that was current solely in fiction—equivalent to “canceling” oneself, reconstructing oneself as items of data, deconstructing oneself, and transferring oneself—at the moment are on the horizon as actual potentialities.
“People have develop into so sensible that they’ve develop into a part of the machine,” he mentioned. “Now the human is partly machine.”
Zarkadakis believes that AI is crucial for making progress. “What worries me is the way it may impression society,” he mentioned.
Prof. Dr Holger Sievert, research coordinator and professor for Media Administration, specialising in PR and Communication Administration, on the Cologne Campus, spoke on the theme “Artificial intelligence as a (non-)matter of two massive European church buildings,” presenting empirical findings from a survey of virtually 1,500 church staff in addition to personal present observations and proposals.
Sievert has performed probably the most intensive empirical research on digitalisation and church buildings lately. His college was the primary in Germany to explicitly permit AI for use in college students’ mission work.
“On-line providers are nonetheless extremely requested even after COVID,” he mentioned. “The church members in Germany are usually not much less digital, they’re extra digital,” he mentioned.
He shared the discovering that, in 2022, 25% of the inhabitants of Germany used Fb on a each day foundation. “In church buildings, it’s Instagram that’s on the highest—and it’s round 60% of individuals,” he mentioned.
Sievert concluded: “What we are able to say general is that church members are one to a few years forward by way of the overall inhabitants in digitization in Germany.”
Study extra: European Christian Internet Conference on Ethical and practical issues in AI use