Humanities in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
About the Cluster
Since Alan Turing proposed his test to measure machine intelligence, whether machines can accurately replicate actual human cognition has been a continuous and sometimes contentious debate fueled by AI skeptics and speculative science fiction. Cautionary tales aside, global capital and powerful governments are hurrying to develop AI in their respective countries. The global race to develop AI is undoubtedly driven by wealth, power, and technological edge. While there has been significant progress integrating AI into research practices in engineering and the physical and biological sciences, there is work to be done in the humanities. There is enormous room for humanist experimentation, and a chance to design distinctive visions and methodologies for AI. We aim to create a laboratory to facilitate that experimentation, focusing on the promise of large language models (LLMs) in conjunction with other machine learning systems. Leveraging LLMs is the next research breakthrough for our disciplines, and we aspire to be at the forefront of this revolutionary wave.
Explore further on the cluster website.
Principal Investigator
Minghui Hu (History)
Affiliated Faculty
Massimiliano Tomba (History of Consciousness)
Magy Seif El-Nasr (Computational Media)
Noah G Wardrip-Fruin (Computational Media)
Pranav Anand (Linguistics)
Benjamin Breen (History)
Zac Zimmer (Literature)
Affiliated Graduate students
Mark Howard (Politics)
Manning Chan (History)
Affiliated Community Members
Jeffrey Weekley (Director, Research IT, ITS, UCSC)
Xiao Li (Digital Humanist, ITS, UCSC)
Saskia Nauenberg Dunkell (Research Programs and Communications Director, THI, UCSC)
Events:
March 11, 2025 – AI Cluster Meeting: Mathew L. Jones
March 4, 2025 – AI Cluster Meeting: Benjamin Breen
February 18, 2025 – AI Cluster Meeting: Katie Shilton
January 27, 2025 – AI Cluster Meeting: Dan Zimmer
November 18, 2024 – Wenyi Shang: Moving Beyond the Streetlight
October 28, 2024 – “Art and Artificial Intelligence: A Philosophical Investigation” with Alice Barale
May 6, 2024 – “Humanities in the Age of AI” Lunch Meeting – Cancelled
April 8, 2024 – “Humanities in the Age of AI” Lunch Meeting: Theresa Hice-Fromille and Sarah Papazoglakis
March 4, 2024 – “Humanities in the Age of AI” Lunch Meeting: Machine Translation (MT) with Large Language Models (LLMs)
February 12, 2024 – Davide Panagia: Political Theory, Democracy, and the Challenges of Algorithmic Governance
January 8, 2024 – “Humanities in the Age of AI” Lunch Meeting: Magy Seif El-Nasr and Mark Howard
December 11, 2023 – “Humanities in the Age of AI” Lunch Meeting: Dustin Gray
November 20, 2023 – “Humanities in the Age of AI” Lunch Meeting: Matt Sparke and Jack Fox Keen
October 2, 2023 – “Humanities in the Age of AI” Cluster Lunch Meeting