Singularity Summer
Two-month course focused on machine learning and story
A TWO-MONTH CRITICAL EXPLORATION OF TECHNOLOGICAL SINGULARITY
The technological singularity is an idea that emerged from the fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and cybernetics, and has come to inform much of technological development in related fields over the past decades. Today our world has become dominated by a fourth industrial revolution constituted by AI and machine learning software. How are we to think about the human in such a radically transformed world?
This July and August, Philosophy Portal will be hosting machine learning expert Thomas Hamelryck, and long-time singularity and critical theorist Nikola Danaylov for a two-month exploration of this question.
In July we will be hosting Thomas Hamelryck for an in-depth tour through, not only the technical world of machine learning — how it works, what it is, and what it isn’t — but also how we might expect machine learning to transform human institutions and relationships, both in our present and in the future.
In August we will be hosting Nikola Danaylov for a critical focus on the singularity in the context of the nature of story and the human being as a story-telling creature, with relevance to how we might think the philosophy of technology, capitalism, politics, and economics, in a world dominated by AI and machine learning.
Signing up gives you access to live sessions and lifetime access to recordings.
Singularity SummerMeet Your Seminar Leaders
Thomas Hamelryck is a researcher at the University of Copenhagen with a full professor position in machine learning and high dimensional biological data analysis shared at the Department of Biology and the Department of Computer Science (Programming Languages and Theory of Computation section, PLTC). He is a specialist in Bayesian modelling and probabilistic machine learning. Currently, his research mostly focuses on probabilistic machine learning applied to protein structure prediction and protein evolution.
Nikola Danaylov is a futurist philosopher and keynote provocateur who helps leaders redefine their context, rewrite their story, and shape the future before it shapes them. He is the creator of Singularity.FM, the world’s first and most influential podcast on the technological singularity, artificial intelligence, and the future of humanity. Since 2009, Nikola has interviewed over 300 of the world’s brightest minds, including Ray Kurzweil, Noam Chomsky, Peter Diamandis, Marvin Minsky, Max More, and Michio Kaku. His work has been featured by BBC, WIRED, MTV, ArteTV, HuffPost, ZDNet, and many others, earning him the nickname “The Larry King of the Singularity.”
Pre-course content
Each session focuses on extending our capacity to think the nature of the human-machine civilisation.
- The Basics of Machine Learning
- Machine Learning and Human Relationships
- Machine Learning and Human Institutions
- Machine Learning: Potential and Limits
- The Nature of Story
- The Human Story
- Capitalism, Politics, Technology as Story
- Rewriting the Human Story
Schedule
Online / 830pm CEST (Central European Summer Time)
Sunday July 5th / Session 1: Basics of Machine Learning w/ Thomas Hamelryck
Sunday July 12th / Session 2: Myths of Machine Learning w/ Thomas Hamelryck
Sunday July 19th / Session 3: Human Relationships and Institutions w/ Thomas Hamelryck
Sunday July 26th / Session 4: Potential and the Limits of Machine Learning w/ Thomas Hamelryck
Sunday August 2nd / Session 5: The Nature of Story w/ Nikola Danaylov
Sunday August 16th / Session 6: The Human Story w/ Nikola Danaylov
Sunday August 23rd / Session 7: Capitalism, Politics, Technology as Story w/ Nikola Danaylov
Sunday August 30th / Session 8: Rewriting the Human Story w/ Nikola Danaylov
Singularity Summer