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Articles 1 - 17 of 17
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Exploring Ai, Faith, And The Future Through A Faculty Research Group, Michael Paulus, Carlos Arias, Mike Langford, Phillip Baker
Exploring Ai, Faith, And The Future Through A Faculty Research Group, Michael Paulus, Carlos Arias, Mike Langford, Phillip Baker
SPU Works
The impact of artificial intelligence on our world requires engagement from Christian scholars in every discipline. This presentation describes the organization of a faculty research group (FRG) to explore AI from various disciplinary perspectives and with Christian faith. This FRG increased knowledge of AI, stimulated interdisciplinary and theological reflection, and cultivated collaboration and scholarship. The FRG has an essay collection, AI, Faith, and the Future, forthcoming from Pickwick Publications. FRG members will discuss the impact of the FRG on members’ scholarship, as well as research opportunities related to AI.
Hope And Longing In Las Vegas, Michael Paulus
Hope And Longing In Las Vegas, Michael Paulus
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This paper brings together three interpreters of the earthly city and the apocalyptic city—Jacques Ellul, Hunter S. Thompson, and John of the Apocalypse—to reflect on the future of our technological society. Focusing on expectations about artificial intelligence, it explores the future imagined at the 2019 re:MARS conference, “Amazon’s global AI event for Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics, and Space,” and the global stress test of these expectations a year later during the COVID-19 pandemic. What can we learn from the negative prophecies of Ellul’s The Meaning of the City (1970) and Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey …
Postdigital Librarianship, Michael Paulus
Postdigital Librarianship, Michael Paulus
SPU Works
The novel coronavirus pandemic revealed many of the promises of our digital information revolution, but it also revealed many problems and raised fundamental questions about what we can know, what we may hope, and what we should do. As we reimagine what might be possible after the pandemic, librarians and libraries are well positioned to help shape better futures through critical, constructive, and ethical approaches to digital transformation. This paper explores our present information crisis and revolution, previous information revolutions, and strategic directions for integrating new technologies into our lives in ways that may enhance wisdom, hope, and justice.
Fear And Loathing In The Technological City, Michael Paulus
Fear And Loathing In The Technological City, Michael Paulus
SPU Works
This presentation brings together three interpreters of the city—Jacques Ellul, Hunter S. Thompson, and John of the Apocalypse—to reflect on the future of our technological society. It contrasts rejections of the city, found in Ellul’s The Meaning of the City (1970) and Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1972), with an affirmation of the technological city found in the Apocalypse of John.
The Augmented Library: Exploring The History And Future Of Library Automation, Michael Paulus
The Augmented Library: Exploring The History And Future Of Library Automation, Michael Paulus
SPU Works
Like most institutions, libraries have entered a period of digital transformation during which exponential technologies such as artificial intelligence are changing the future of work. But libraries entered the age of autonomous and intelligent technologies over fifty years ago, when automated information processing became integral to established as well as new services. This presentation explores how past discussions of continuity and change shaped the future of the library over the last fifty years. It also points to parallels with present discussions about the anticipated role of AI in libraries.
Imagining The Posdigital Church, Michael Paulus
Imagining The Posdigital Church, Michael Paulus
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This essay focuses on the ongoing need and opportunity for church leaders to continue the process of digital transformation and imagine new forms of the post-pandemic church.
Your Data Primer, Michael Paulus
Your Data Primer, Michael Paulus
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In their recent book Tools and Weapons, Brad Smith and Carol Ann Browne describe the 2018 Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal as a Three Mile Island moment for data stewardship. After years of sharing personal data without much thought about how it might be used or abused, the public is now becoming more aware of the need for clearer responsibilities and rights related to the collection, processing, and dissemination of personal information. “Data has always been important to society,” Smith and Browne point out, but “it has never played the role it does today … every aspect of human life is fueled …
Data And Identity: Notes Toward A Theology Of The Digitally Enhanced Self, Michael Paulus
Data And Identity: Notes Toward A Theology Of The Digitally Enhanced Self, Michael Paulus
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In the HBO-BBC miniseries "Years and Years," a teenager named Bethany (!) comes out as transhuman and tells her parents she wants to “live forever as information ... [to] be data!” As information about us increasingly takes the form of digital data, we are all of us becoming data. Indeed, so much of our attention and agency is engaged with digital information in digital environments that the philosopher Luciano Floridi describes us as “inforgs” living “onlife” in an “infosphere.” Through nearly constant and ubiquitous patterns of digital interactions with human and artificial agents, we are creating digitally extended and enhanced …
Artificial Intelligence And The Apocalyptic Imagination: The Ends Of Divine, Natural, And Artificial Agency, Michael Paulus
Artificial Intelligence And The Apocalyptic Imagination: The Ends Of Divine, Natural, And Artificial Agency, Michael Paulus
SPU Works
New information and communication technologies (ICTs) are reshaping our lives and the environments in which we live to such an extent that philosopher Luciano Floridi claims we are living through an information revolution. ICTs are changing our self-understanding, how we relate to each other, and how we understand our role in the world. At the center of this revolution is the advent of automated information processing and intelligent systems.These technologies of artificial intelligence (AI) raise questions about data collection, algorithmic agency, and the future of every dimension of life. They also inspire a range of hopes and fears. Some AI …
The Age Of The Library, Michael Paulus
The Age Of The Library, Michael Paulus
SPU Works
In 2018, the Seattle Pacific University Library launched a minor in Information Studies. This multidisciplinary program explores the dynamic relationships between information, technology, and people and how our lives are changing in our emerging information and technological environment. Why would a library create such a program, and what does it reveal about the present and future role of the library?
A Framework For Digital Wisdom In Higher Education, Michael Paulus
A Framework For Digital Wisdom In Higher Education, Michael Paulus
SPU Works
Institutions of higher education have a crucial role and responsibility at this moment of technological change to form people who will flourish in our so-called digital age. The speed with which digital information and communication technologies have permeated our lives has left little time for critical reflection on how we may intentionally integrate them into our lives. Regardless of when we were born or the depth of our technological expertise, we are all of us digitally naïve. Individually and collectively, we are still learning how to use new and emerging digital technologies well and wisely. This essay presents a framework …
From The City To The Cloud: Charles Williams’S Image Of The City As An Affirmation Of Artificial Intelligence, Michael Paulus
From The City To The Cloud: Charles Williams’S Image Of The City As An Affirmation Of Artificial Intelligence, Michael Paulus
SPU Works
A number of Christian intellectuals who lived through the “catastrophic” twentieth century had a deep distrust of “technological innovation.” C. S. Lewis lamented the impact of technology on education, Dorothy L. Sayers lamented the impact of technology on community, and J. R. R. Tolkien lamented the impact of technology on the environment. Jacques Ellul saw technology as a human rejection of God’s work. For Ellul, this was the meaning of the city: from its primordial origins through its apocalyptic end, the city was a “counter-creation”—a technological negation of God’s Edenic creation.Charles Williams stands out from among his contemporaries in his …
Digital Reformation.Pdf, Michael Paulus, Bruce Baker
Digital Reformation.Pdf, Michael Paulus, Bruce Baker
SPU Works
Digital information and communication technologies are rapidly changing how we understand our identities and institutions. Five hundred years ago, new printing technologies created conditions that enabled the Protestant reformation and profoundly changed the world. Today, we are in the midst of a digital revolution. But what is being reformed, and what are we reforming? This session will explore the nature of our present information age and the theological questions it raises, touching on theological principles, cultural critiques, and spiritual practices that can help us reflect on digital reformation and transformation.
Our Technological Past And Future: From Predigital To Postdigital Apocalypses, Michael J. Paulus Jr.
Our Technological Past And Future: From Predigital To Postdigital Apocalypses, Michael J. Paulus Jr.
SPU Works
An exploration of technological hopes and fears in apocalyptic literature.
The Beginning Of Digital Wisdom, Michael J. Paulus Jr., Ryan Ingersoll
The Beginning Of Digital Wisdom, Michael J. Paulus Jr., Ryan Ingersoll
SPU Works
Marc Prensky, who popularized the term “digital natives” more than ten years ago, now emphasizes the need for “digital wisdom”: using digital technologies wisely to become wiser. Recent research reveals that so-called digital natives are often “digital naïves”—familiarity with digital technologies does not translate into facility with them. Incoming college students report declining confidence in their computer skills and report very modest improvements by the time they graduate. Employers report deficiencies in the technological skills of college graduates and, perhaps most troubling, studies of youth and young adults show that ethical and moral reasoning does not extend much beyond self-protection. …
Technology And Power, Michael J. Paulus Jr.
Digital Wisdom For A Digital Age: Spirituality And Technology In The 21st Century, Michael J. Paulus Jr., Ryan Ingersoll
Digital Wisdom For A Digital Age: Spirituality And Technology In The 21st Century, Michael J. Paulus Jr., Ryan Ingersoll
SPU Works
No abstract provided.