Please watch this space for additional details and registration information for our upcoming spring 2026 Sidore events focused on ethical questions about AI and other emerging technologies.
Artificial Intelligence and Human Values: A Public Conversation
Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant or abstract possibility; it is already reshaping how we work, create, decide, and relate to one another. As AI systems grow more powerful and more deeply embedded in social life, a new set of questions demands our attention
What values should guide these technologies?
Which human capacities should be preserved, transformed, or relinquished?
And who gets to decide?
AI and Human Values will bring together three leading voices in contemporary philosophy and AI ethics, known for combining conceptual rigor with real-world relevance. Their talks will approach AI from different angles, offering complementary perspectives on what is at stake as intelligent systems increasingly shape human life.
Presenters:
- Beba Cibralic, professor of policy analysis at the RAND school of Public Policy and author of Machine Agency (MIT Press, 2025)
- Harvey Lederman, co-PI of the AI and Human Objectives Initiative and professor of philosophy at UT Austin;
- Henry Shevlin, program director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge;
EVENTS
Thursday, April 2
Location: Portsmouth Music Hall lounge
Each speaker will deliver a short lightning talk, followed by a panel discussion moderated by Nir Eisokivits, Professor of Philosophy and founder of the Applied Ethics Center at UMass Boston, and James Hughes, bioethicist, sociologist, co-founder of the Institute for the Ethics of Emerging Technologies and author of Citizen Cyborg. The discussion will be recorded as a live episode of the podcast Prosthetic Gods.
Friday, April 3
Location: UNH Campus, TBD
We will host a workshop on campus at UNH, open to the public and the university community. During the workshop, participants will give longer-form talks expanding on ideas introduced the previous evening.
The Saul O Sidore Memorial Lecture Series was established in 1965 in memory of Saul O Sidore of Manchester, New Hampshire. The purpose of the series is to offer the University community and the state of New Hampshire programs that raise critical and sometimes controversial issues facing our society. The University of New Hampshire Center for the Humanities sponsors the programs. Lectures are free and open to the public.
