2025 Summer Symposia Series

Our Symposia summer theme and topics couldn't be hotter. Over three Tuesdays, wherever you are, we are grilling about AI and ethics. No, we are not discussing A1 steak sauce at our hourlong summertime BBQs.

Gabe Kahn, A2Ethics' Symposia builder and connector, has been chatting with Symposia engineer, Charles Aspegren, about practical ethics questions that everyday workforce and personal use of AI present.    

Charles is a former Michigan High School Ethics Bowl participant, and member of a state championship team that won third place at Nationals. He now lives in New York working as a product manager for a tech company. Charles uses AI tools on a daily basis and is excited to guide our conversations about how--in a pluralistic society we believe and think AI models are currently aligned or not aligned--that is how are AI models trained and designed, used and regulated? And the many fascinating ethical issues that accompany our responses. Here is what Charles is prepping us for in his excellent introduction video.

The first conversation is on Zoom, Tuesday, July 22nd from 7-8 PM EDT. It will focus on "Building Aligned Models." Here are a few resources to help you get familiar with the topic:  

    Artificial Intelligence, Values, and Alignment – Iason Gabriel
    How Difficult is AI Alignment? – Anthropic research team
    Expanding on Sycophancy – Open AI research team
    They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling. Kashmir Hill
    Musk’s Chatbot Started Spouting Nazi Propaganda. That’s Not the Scariest Part, Zeynep Tufekci

See you on July 22nd! We think alignment will take on a whole new meaning for you! 

Painting credit: Rene Magritte, "Evening Falls"  Or should we foresee when the sun goes down "the stars will align?"