AI Ethics and Society: Current and Potential Impacts of AI - Charlie Catlett

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not a new concept, but in recent years it has fueled amazing new capabilities, from computer vision to language processing. Developed with enormous volumes and diversity of data and unprecedented computing power, large-scale AI systems have begun to manifest emergent—unplanned, unexpected, unexplainable—capabilities. This seminar will cover, at a high level, the foundations for AI technology, where it has excelled, and an update on the use of AI in diverse contexts. We will discuss how AI systems work (without formulae or buzzwords), what we might expect in the future, and how AI systems are playing an increasingly central role in culture and society. We will also grapple with how individuals, churches, and ministries might approach and evaluate AI applications as well as broader questions regarding potential impacts on society. This will include a framework for evaluating the use of AI, including responsibility, trustworthiness, goal alignment, and ethics.

This is part 3 in a 3 part series on 'Artificial Intelligence: AI's Influence on Society and the Christian's Response'.

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Charlie Catlett is a senior computer scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and The University of Chicago who has focused his research for 40 years in the development of the Internet and WorldWideWeb, computer security, and high-performance computing, holding scientific leadership positions at multiple universities and national laboratories. During the past decade his research has focused on the use of computational modeling and artificial intelligence (AI) embedded with sensors to create new classes of environmental measurements and urban planning capabilities. Recently he has also used AI-based data analysis to assess community vulnerability to factors ranging from communicable disease to impacts of climate change, such as flooding and extreme temperatures. He has received numerous awards for his research and leadership, including being named to Crain’s “Tech 50” leaders in Chicago in 2014, GovTech magazine’s national “25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers” of 2016, as a Distinguished Performer in 2019 by the Board of Trustees of Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago, and was named one of the "High Performance Computing People to Watch in 2025" by HPCWire magazine. Charlie is a Computer Engineering graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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