In conjunction with our current exhibition, Eva Goetz's delightful, AI-themed "Think A Bot It," Cove Street Arts is proud and honored to host what's sure to be an educational and thought-provoking panel on the benefits, uncertainties, and potential hazards associated with rapid advancements in technology and artificial intelligence.
Please join us in welcoming our distinguished panel of experts: Bowdoin Associate Professor of Computer Science and Department Chair Stephen Majercik; Bowdoin Postdoctoral Fellow in Digital and Computational Studies, Fernando Nascimento; Bowdoin Professor of Computer Science, Sarah M. Harmon; Anotrope, Inc. CEO and Computer Science Instructor at the University of Southern Maine and UC Berkeley, Tiffany Rad; and, 14 year-old middle school student, Lily West, who will provide the important perspective of a young person who has never lived in a world where computers and devices were not ubiquitous in our daily lives.
Are we marching toward a future filled with health and well-being, or are we on a darker, more destructive course, drunk and blinded by our own creative capacity? Have we fully considered the impact of tech's innovations on society (democracy) and on our planet? Stop by and join the conversation!
This event is free and open to the public. Seating is first-come, first served.
Meet the panel:
Stephen Majercik is an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at Bowdoin College. His primary research interest is nature inspired computation, in particular swarm
intelligence and particle swarm optimization. He is also interested in applications of artificial intelligence in the arts and using technology as an expressive medium. He received his A.B. in Government from Harvard University in 1977 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Duke University in 2000.
Fernando Nascimento worked for almost twenty years in the telecommunication industry developing software for mobile devices worldwide. In parallel, he has also been studying and teaching Philosophy, with a special focus on the ethical and hermeneutical works of the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. He is currently working on establishing a digital portal that will provide a template for digital humanities advanced textual analytics on Ricoeur corpus that can be re-instantiated for other thinkers and academic communities. A second research interest area involves the discussion of ethical and ontological aspects of technologies in our current society as well as perspectives for the near future.
Dr. Sarah M. Harmon is an interdisciplinary scientist and the director of the Bowdoin Computational Creativity Lab. Her research specialties include computational creativity, narrative intelligence, and playable media (in particular, building purposeful systems that invite play). Her scholarly projects and exhibitions often incorporate techniques from artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, machine learning, and natural language processing.
Tiffany Rad is a cyber security researcher and Maine attorney. She is the CEO and co-founder of Anatrope, Inc. which develops wireless automotive technologies for the security and data analytics industries. Her independent cyber security research was listed as #4 in "Top 10 White Hat Hacks" by Bloomberg and she is a contributor to the book “Security in 2020.” Her cyber security research and analysis has been featured by NPR, Wired, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and other international news sources.
Lily West is a typical 8th grade public school student from the Portland area. She got a cell phone this year, having been influenced by early years in Waldorf School, where modern technology is embraced much more gradually. She has graciously been teaching her parents about the role of technology in the current mainstream middle school world.