Human Relationships in an Artificial World

Join us for a panel discussion exploring the impact of generative artificial intelligence on human relationships. The intellectual framing of this panel begins from a long-standing insight in philosophical and social thought: that human identity and moral life are formed through encounter and interdependence—through how we live and build relationships with others. As generative AI systems increasingly shape how people learn, work, seek companionship, and experience solitude, we ask: what happens to human relationships when technologies can meet us in the very forms of interaction through which those relationships have traditionally been constituted? How might the availability of fluent, responsive, non-human interlocutors reshape the value we place on the effort, vulnerability, and reciprocity required by relationships with other humans—and, in turn, our understanding of the human condition itself?

About the Panelists

Carissa Véliz

Carissa Véliz is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Institute for Ethics in AI, and a Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy at Hertford College, at the University of Oxford. 

Dr. Véliz completed her DPhil in Philosophy at the University of Oxford. She was then a Research Fellow at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities at the University of Oxford. Her first book, Privacy Is Power, was an Economist book of the year and has been published in seven languages. She is also the author of The Ethics of Privacy and Surveillance and the editor of The Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics. 

To find out more about Carissa’s work, visit her website: www.carissaveliz.com 

Jonathan Zittrain

Jonathan Zittrain is the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School, Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Director of the Harvard Law School Library, and Co-Founder of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. His research interests include the ethics and governance of artificial intelligence; battles for control of digital property; the regulation of cryptography; new privacy frameworks for loyalty to users of online services; the roles of intermediaries within Internet architecture; and the useful and unobtrusive deployment of technology in education. His book, The Future of the Internet -- And How to Stop Itand its sequel-in-progress, Well, We Tried, have grappled with the balance between centralized and distributed computing, networking, and AI.  That and other works may be found at http://www.jz.org. 

Eric Beerbohm (Moderator)

Eric Beerbohm is Alfred and Rebecca Lin Professor of Government and Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University. He serves as Faculty Director of the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, Faculty Dean at Quincy House, and Senior Adviser on Civil Discourse in the Faculty of Arts and Science. His philosophical and teaching interests include democratic theory, political ethics, and the philosophy of social science. Recent work includes Civic Education in Polarized Times (with Elizabeth Beaumont) and Reconciliation and Repair (with Melissa Schwartzberg), part of NOMOS, the annual volume of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy.