The 2025 Terry Forum: The Question Concerning AI

Is AI as revolutionary as fire in changing the world? Or is that hype? But can it be hype when AI has such obvious benefits in some research fields? How can we leverage the astonishing potential of AI in a rational, practical and responsible way? Is AI a moral panic, a sales job, a generational opportunity, a threat of apocalypse? How can we think clearly and deeply about a topic that is so obscured by glitz, money, and noise? How can we as scholars at Yale collectively understand AI in our academic setting, and how should our research and teaching respond to advances in AI? These are some of the questions this panel will seek to answer, or at least explore at the Forum.

Panelists

Lisa Messeri, Associate Professor of Anthropology

Brandon Ogbuno, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

John Durham Peters, Maria Rosa Menocal Professor of English and of Film and Media Studies

Joanna Radin, Associate Professor of History of Medicine and History

Moderator

Priyamvada Natarajan, Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton Professor of Astronomy and Professor of Physics; Director of the Franke Program in Science and the Humanities