Affirming the Human Person in the Age of AI: A Novel Approach

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This event is co-sponsored with the Lumen Christi Institute

What happens to our sense of the human person, to our sense of ourselves and others, if we give up the demanding goods of reading books for the efficient, instant rewards of Artificial Intelligence? This is a question as much for people who read books as it is for people who write books, and especially for people committed to reading and writing for the reasons St. Augustine proposed as the purpose of literature itself: to increase charity, to make us love others more than ourselves.

Novelist and professor of English Randy Boyagoda is distinctly positioned to answer these questions. The author of a new novel, Lords of Serendipity, Boyagoda will be in conversation with Hank Center Director, Catholic literature scholar, and writer Michael P. Murphy. The two of them will discuss Randy’s new book, a biting satire of the academic-industrial complex. Drawing on Pope Leo’s Magnifica Humanitas and their shared investment in the Catholic imagination, they will also talk about how to affirm and defend a supple and durable sense of humanness in an age of artificial spaces and intelligences. Spoiler alert: This involves reading good books, preferably novels…

The evening’s conversation will be held at the University Club of Chicago. An open bar cocktail hour and hors d’oeuvres reception will precede the program at 5pm. The conversation will begin at 6pm and will be followed by a book signing at 7:30pm. Registration includes a copy of Lords of Serendipity.