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Virtuous AI?: Cultural Evolution, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtue

        In July 2022, The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) announced the start of a new three-year research project funded by the John Templeton Foundation. The research titled "Virtuous AI?: Cultural Evolution, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtue" will focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI), its cultural and ethical implications, how this could impact human virtue, and how we might envision AI and virtue. More information about the new project can be found on the CTNS website.   As part of the new project, CTNS is hosting three online conferences in the summer of 2023...
CTNS Event

Virtuous AI: Call for Papers

Event Date: 
Sunday, January 1st 2023
Call for Paper Deadline: January 31, 2023 CTNS welcomes papers for these conferences on three core questions. More details on the three core questions can be found in this link.   1) How and to what extent will AI influence human cultural evolution? 2) Can AI assist humans in the acquisition of virtue? 3) Is AI capable of virtue? If so, are those virtues shared with or distinct from human virtues?   If you are interested, please send your 100-word abstract and a 500-word description of the paper by January 31, 2023, to this link. You can find the same submission link and detailed...
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Virtuous AI - Call for Papers

Instructions We no longer receive proposals for the conference. Participants who are selected for the conferences will be offered a $1000 honorarium for writing the conference paper.  In order to submit to the call for papers, we will need name, institution, title, and email address. Additionally, we request the following information: 1. Which core question(s) do you plan to focus on in your paper (ranked in order if more than one)? 2. A tentative title for your paper  3. A 100-word abstract concisely summarizing your paper 4. A 500-word description of your position/argument and ...
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“Virtuous AI?: Cultural Evolution, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtue”

The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) is hosting three online conferences in the summer of 2023 as part of its new grant, “Virtuous AI?: Cultural Evolution, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtue”: A research program of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS). More information can be found here. The conferences will be focused on time zones centered on Seoul, Berkeley and Rome.  This is to encourage participation by AI scientists and humanities scholars from a wide variety of religious and philosophical perspectives, cultural traditions, and geographic locations...
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Virtuous AI: Conference Schedules

Date & Time of the Conference Berkeley: June 12 - 15, 2023 Monday – Wednesday, June 12 - 14, 2023, 9 am - 2 pm (Pacific Standard Time; GMT-8), Presentation and discussion of the papers by participants with a short time for questions from the online audience. Thursday, June 15, 2023, 9 am - 11 am (Pacific Standard Time; GMT-8), a closed session for participants only.     Seoul: July 11 - 14, 2023 Tuesday - Thursday, July 11-13, 2023, 8 am - 1 pm (Korea Standard Time; GMT+9).  Friday, July 14, 2023, 8 am - 10 am (Korea Standard Time; GMT+9).   Rome: July 24 - 27, 2023 Monday –...
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Current Research

In July 2022, The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) announced the start of a new three-year research project funded by the John Templeton Foundation. The research titled "Virtuous AI?: Cultural Evolution, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtue" will focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI), its cultural and ethical implications, how this could impact human virtue, and how we might envision AI and virtue. More information about the new project can be found on the CTNS website. As part of the new project, CTNS is hosting three online conferences in the summer of 2023. The...
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Virtuous AI: Three Core Questions

To understand the Virtuous AI project better, we will first present in some detail the current research being done today by some of our potential participants.  This section is organized around the three core questions.   Core question 1): How and to what extent will AI influence human cultural evolution? We will first examine the increasingly complex integration of AI into society and how that will affect cultural evolution. Specifically, will the integration of AI into society change the basic premise that cultural evolution is human-driven?[1] Cultural evolution to this point is the...
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CTNS News

Announcement of Dr. Braden Molhoek as the new CTNS Barbour Chair and Director

January 21, 2022 Dear members and friends of CTNS and the GTU: I am delighted to announce that Dr. Braden Molhoek will become the new Ian G. Barbour Assistant Professor in Theology, Science, Ethics and Technology and the CTNS Director in the summer, 2022, following my retirement in June. Braden’s appointment by the GTU, following on the recommendations which I offered with input from the CTNS Advisory Board and other sources, marks a landmark expansion of our mission in interdisciplinary research, teaching and public service to explicitly include ethics and technology along with theology...
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Theology and Science Table of Contents

Volume 20, Issue 4 / November 2022   Editorial Prebunking Disinformation in Science, Skepticism, and Theology by Ted Peters   Articles Aspects of Experience and Their Role in Systematic Theology by John Daniel Andersen & Atle Ottesen Søvik The Evolutionary Biology of Play as a Parameter for Animal Heaven by Thomas W. Martin Ethical Dilemmas in Developing a Vaccine to Prevent COVID-19: The Perspective of Jewish Ethics by Tsuriel Rashi Grace Contra Nature: The Etiology of Christian Religious Beliefs from the Perspective of Theology and the Cognitive Science of Religion by Stanisław...