Will 21st century outsourcing require batteries? Will machines replace the blue-collar workforce by 2010? Can a robot outperform a human in both simple and complex tasks? Will your company’s entire workforce be artificial within your lifetime?
J. David Velleman, professor of philosophy at New York University, will address these issues in “Artificial Agency” Thursday, April 26, at 4:30 p.m. in the Schaffer Library Phi Beta Kappa Room.
The lecture is free and open to the public.
Velleman received his doctorate from Princeton in 1983 and his areas of research include ethics and moral psychology. He has authored several books on the philosophy of action including Practical Reflection and a series of papers entitled "The Possibility of Practical Reason." Velleman has also published papers on the right to die and metaphysics of color and a collection of his papers on the self will be published by Cambridge University Press entitled “Self to Self.”
Velleman has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation. He currently serves as the founding co-Editor of Philosopher's Imprint.
The May 10 lecture features CUNY Professor Steven Ross presenting “When Worlds Collide: Mental State Naturalism and Normative Attribution.” Funding for the Series is provided by the Spencer-Leavitt Foundation.
For further information, contact Raymond Martin, department chair at (518) 388-6376 or martinr@union.edu.