“Alexa, do you love me?  AI and Authentic Relationship”

With Noreen Herzfeld, PhD

February 28, 2023

Online at 7pm ET

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Register here.

We converse with increasingly intelligent programs such as Alexa and ChatGPT, but can we have a truly authentic relationship with them?  What does it take to have such a relationship with another person, or with a non-human being such as a pet, an AI, or God?  Can we love an AI and if we do, will it ever love us back?

Noreen Herzfeld is the Nicholas and Bernice Reuter Professor of Science and Religion at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict.  She holds degrees in Computer Science and Mathematics from The Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in Theology from The Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley.  Herzfeld is the author of The Artifice of Intelligence:  Human and Divine Relationship in a Robotic World (Fortress, 2022), In Our Image:  Artificial Intelligence and the Human Spirit(Fortress, 2002), Technology and Religion:  Remaining Human in a Co-Created World (Templeton, 2009), The Limits of Perfection in Technology, Religion, and Science (Pandora, 2010) and editor of Religion and the New Technologies (MDPI, 2017).  Herzfeld is a research associate at the Institute for Philosophical Studies, Koper Slovenia and writes for the Avon Hills Salon at avonhillssalon.com