A.I., Religion​​, and Humanity
How Might We (or Should We) Shape the future?

​NYT Opinion, Can Silicon Valley Find God? by Linda Kinstler

Vox, Robot priests can bless you, advise you, and even perform your funeral,
by Sigal Samuel

Quick video of robot arm performing arti (worship) for Lord Ganesha (30 sec) 

BBC (12 min), God and robots: Will AI transform religion?

The Humanist, The Relationship of Artificial Intelligence and Religion to Secular Morality, by Gordon Gamm 

Ted Talk (16 min), What happens when our computers get smarter than we are?, by Nick Bostrom ​

Longing for Happiness:
Why do we want happiness?
Should there be ethical boundaries to achieving it?
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Brook's October 21, 2021 Atlantic Article 'The Meaning of Life is Surprisingly Simple' https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2021/10/meaning-life-macronutrients-purpose-search/620440/

Hart's July 2020 Cell Article 'Exaggerating Harmful Drug Effects on the Brain Is Killing Black People' https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(20)30473-6?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0896627320304736%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Recent NY Times article citing Brooks 'How Liberals Can Be Happier' https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/25/opinion/liberals-happiness-thanksgiving.html?referringSource=articleShare

Atlantic podcast featuring Carl Hart https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2021/06/columbia-professor-drug-use-american-rights/619208/
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What is Human Nature? :
Moral Challenges for Genetic Engineering and Research Today

​Suggested Reading & Videos 

1. A Harvard geneticist's goal: to protect humans from viruses, genetic diseases, and aging​​  Please Note:  If you only have time to see one thing – see the video above or read the transcript as   described: (13 minutes)
2. The “60 Minutes Overtime” presentation mentioned is here: The complicated ethics of genetic engineering (5 minutes)
3. James Sherley has been focused on adult stem cell technology, but a few years back had these opinion pieces published: Stop the Cloning Madness & Crossing Line on Cloning
4. Opinion: Eight questions to ask before human genetic engineering goes mainstream, by George Church
5. Reversing Human Aging, George Church, TEDxBeaconStreetSalon
6. Jeantine Lunshof conducts her philosophical and ethical work as a full-time ethicist on the workfloor of the George Church lab.
7. 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry Laureate Jennifer Doudna, UC Berkeley Biochemist, and Columbia U. Oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee discuss The Future of Humans: Gene Editing & the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution. (84 minutes)  
8. The CRISPR Journal Vol. 3, No. 5 Perspective Free Access: Reactions to the National Academies/Royal Society Report on Heritable Human Genome Editing; See George Church: “Germline versus somatic debate” (among other profitable readings) 
9. A search on "ethics for crispr" provides perspective 
10. The Personal Genome Project and The Personal Genetics Education Project

​God and the Human Mind:

How Do Cognitive Science and Neuroscience Interface with Religion?

SUGGESTED PRE-EVENT READINGS & VIDEOS

1. Scientific Explanations for the Mind and Religious Belief (18-minute video) – Tania Lombrozo discusses scientific explanations for the mind and religious belief.
2. Religion and the Brain: A Debate (17 pages if printed) – Jordan Grafman debates whether evolution explains why the human brain supports religious belief.
3. Does Evolutionary Psychology Undermine Religion? (9-minute video) – A PBS Closer to Truth interview with Justin Barrett.

ADDITIONAL (SHORT) READINGS AND JOURNAL ARTICLES THAT MIGHT BE OF INTEREST:

1. NPR blog post by Tania Lombrozo: Are Scientific and religious explanations incompatible? (3 pages printed)
2. Article on Jordan Grafman’s research: New Research Reveals the Brain’s Role in Mystical Experiences. (1 page printed)
3. Plunkett, D., Buchak, L., & Lombrozo, T. (2020). When and why people think beliefs are “debunked” by scientific explanations of their origins. Mind and Language, 35(1), 3-28.
4. Cristofori, I., Bulbulia, J., Shaver, J. H., Wilson, M., Krueger, F., & Grafman, J. (2016). Neural correlates of mystical experience. Neuropsychologia, 80, 212-220.