Meghan Sullivan explores how AI challenges our understanding of human value. She advocates for a love ethic that emphasizes dignity, connection, and care over mere productivity. This moment mirrors past technological advancements, offering a chance for a philosophical awakening. Sullivan argues that we must redefine humanity's essence and establish a moral framework to navigate our rapidly evolving world.
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insights INSIGHT
Redefining Human Dignity Beyond AI
AI surpasses humans in logic and productivity, challenging traditional views of human dignity.
We must find human value beyond productivity and logical reasoning, where software cannot compete.
insights INSIGHT
Love Ethic Defines Human Value
Human dignity won't be measured by productivity or formal reasoning skills anymore.
The love ethic will be crucial to define what truly gives human life meaning beyond what software can do.
insights INSIGHT
Technology Threatens Human Connection
Technology, like the internet and social media, can increase loneliness and insularity.
As tech grows more powerful, these unloving effects may intensify, challenging human connection.
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Philosopher and Notre Dame professor Meghan Sullivan shares her take on how the AI era has forced us to rethink what truly gives human life value. As machines surpass us in logic and productivity, the love ethic offers an answer rooted in dignity, connection, and care.
Similar to other technological advancements throughout history, this moment has created an opportunity for a philosophical breakthrough: one that helps us identify what humanity really is, how to identify it, and how to preserve it.
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About Meghan Sullivan:
Meghan Sullivan is the Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, where she leads the Ethics Initiative and founded the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good. With support from the John Templeton Foundation, the Institute advances research and teaching on human flourishing. Sullivan’s work spans ethics, metaphysics, and religion. She’s the author of Time Biases and co-author of The Good Life Method, based on her acclaimed course “God and the Good Life.”
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About The Well
Do we inhabit a multiverse? Do we have free will? What is love? Is evolution directional? There are no simple answers to life’s biggest questions, and that’s why they’re the questions occupying the world’s brightest minds.
Together, let's learn from them.
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