N. Katherine Hayles

With the development of text generators like ChatGPT humans are, for the first time in history, confronted with machines that produce syntactically accurate and semantically coherent texts in natural language. But does this mean that these algorithms “understand us”? That they are endowed with some kind of “theory of the mind” that enables them to work out what their human interlocutor is thinking? In such a scenario, human interactions with AI systems would entail levels of complexity akin to those of interpersonal relationships. How might they affect human evolution?

N. Katherine Hayles, one of the most eminent authors in posthumanism studies, analyses the research being done around these questions and suggests a new way of looking at human evolution in the age of artificial intelligence.

This event is held in the framework of the seminar Algorithmic Societies.