Exploring the Mind - Artificial Intelligence: How We Got Here, How It Works, and What It Might Mean for Our Understanding of the Human Mind

Can AI systems like ChatGPT help us understand the human mind, or are they "alien intelligences”—technological tools that leverage big data to imitate humans? This talk aims to answer this question, dispelling some common misconceptions about how these systems work along the way, and tracing the history of how AI arrived at this point (spoiler: it wasn't just a sudden development in the tech industry). I'll argue that modern AI is far more than a tool. It is a source of stunning new scientific hypotheses about the nature of the human mind, and will revolutionize not just technology, but the psychological, cognitive, and brain sciences as well.

About the speaker: Richard Lewis is the John R. Anderson Collegiate Professor of Psychology, Linguistics, and Cognitive Science at the University of Michigan. The aim of Dr. Lewis's research is to develop computational theories of mind. His current work focuses on human language processing, human decision making, and reinforcement learning in artificial intelligence. He received his PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University and has been on the faculty at Michigan for 25 years.

Note that this talk is free and open to the public and will take place at the Ann Arbor District Library's Downtown Branch.