AILA wishes students the best of luck on finals!
Upcoming Events
Coming Soon:
What AI Means – A Podcast
AI in the Liberal Arts (AILA) is thrilled to announce the upcoming launch of What AI Means, a new podcast hosted by Amherst College Professor Lee Spector. We’ve been working hard to create this series, which explores artificial intelligence through the lens of the liberal arts.
What AI Means is the podcast that asks scholars and creators about the significance of artificial intelligence for the world as they see it, through the lenses of their disciplines and their expertise. Brought to you by Lee Spector, a professor of Computer Science at Amherst College and the Director of AI in the Liberal Arts.
What AI Means features short, accessible conversations with scholars, artists, scientists, and thought leaders across a wide range of fields. By posing a simple question, “What does AI mean?”, the podcast captures the richness and diversity of thought surrounding AI’s societal, ethical, artistic, and conceptual implications. The series aims to reach both academic and public audiences and to share perspectives from across the liberal arts.
As we prepare to launch, we’re excited to share a preview of the first set of episodes:
- Eric Sawyer — AI & Theater Professor in Dramatic Arts (music) at Amherst College, Sawyer discusses AI’s role in performance, imagination, and collaborative creation.
- Kristina Reardon — AI & Writing Senior Lecturer in English at Amherst College, Reardon reflects on how AI is shaping the nature of writing, from creativity to pedagogy.
- Andrew Dole — AI & Religion Professor and Chair of the Religion Department at Amherst College, Dole examines how AI intersects with questions of belief, interpretation, agency, and the study of religious life.
- Miloslava (Mila) Hruba — AI & Art Study Room Manager and European Print Specialist at the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, Hruba considers how AI is reshaping practices in art-making, preservation, and curation, and what this means for artistic interpretation.
- Michael Klare — AI & Peace & World Security Studies Professor Emeritus of Peace & World Security Studies at Hampshire College, Klare discusses how AI technologies are influencing global security, diplomacy, and conflict prevention.
We can’t wait to share these conversations with you and to continue expanding this series with the many perspectives that make the liberal arts so vital to understanding the future of AI.
Streaming SOON on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts!
AI Book Club Winter Break Reading Selection!
Join the AI Book Club in reading God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning by Meghan O’Gieblyn over winter break! We will meet in February to discuss the book in Pemberton Lounge with snacks and engaging conversation.
God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning by Meghan O’Gieblyn is a philosophical exploration of what it means to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence. The book examines how technology has absorbed many of the questions previously addressed by theology and philosophy, and how digital metaphors are reshaping our understanding of existence, identity, and consciousness.
You can find the online discussion platform here on Padlet.Books are available to borrow from the Jones or Frost Libraries.
Next Book Club Meeting:
February 8th @ 2 pm
Pemberton Lounge in Chapin Hall
Amherst College
Professors Dole (Religion) and Spector (Computer Science) are expected to be joining us!
You will be able to sign out copies of the February Selection on site at our pop-up library!
Please feel free to reach out to the Book Club team with any of your thoughts, questions, and feedback. We look forward to reading your reflections on Padlet and seeing you on campus, in town, and on February 8th @ 2pm!
Email: aila@amherst.edu to join the mailing list or for questions about the book club.
Looking Ahead to Spring at AILA
As we look ahead to the spring semester, AILA is excited to continue creating spaces for the Amherst College community to engage critically, creatively, and collaboratively with artificial intelligence. Here’s a preview of what’s coming from AILA next semester:
- A cornerstone of our spring semester will be the return of the AI in the Liberal Arts Undergraduate Conference (date TBD). This annual conference brings together students, faculty, and community members for a day of conversation, learning, and exchange around AI’s technical, social, cultural, and ethical dimensions. Open to participants from Amherst, the Five Colleges, and beyond, the conference reflects AILA’s mission to foster inclusive and interdisciplinary engagement with AI. As in previous years, the conference will showcase undergraduate work across a wide range of fields.
- Knowledge in a Post-AI World: A Liberal Arts Symposium:AILA is planning a symposium in April with speaker events, workshops, and roundtable discussions where we ask: How does information become knowledge? How do we record and share understanding across space and time? This symposium will bring together thinkers across disciplines to explore how AI is reshaping how we access information, perceive it, trust it, and build upon it. We’ll examine what liberal arts education can uniquely contribute to a post-AI world, how knowledge is regulated and distributed when anyone can generate text, and whether AI might improve or erode our collective capacity to reason.
- AILA is excited to continue the Alumni Speaker Series in the spring semester. After hosting three Amherst alumni this past fall, we will welcome three more alumni back to campus to share how they are engaging with artificial intelligence in their professional and scholarly work. These talks offer students a chance to hear firsthand how Amherst’s liberal arts education informs real-world applications, research, and ethical thinking about AI across diverse fields.
- The AILA AI Book Club will continue this spring with its first meeting on February 8 in Pemberton Lounge at Amherst College. Meeting once a month, the Book Club brings together students, faculty, staff, and Amherst residents to discuss books that explore AI from a range of perspectives, including science fiction, ethics, history, and social impact. Each session features faculty guests who help ground the conversation in their disciplines, and a pop-up library will be available on site for members to borrow books! Expect thoughtful, lively, and engaging discussions, and no technical background required.
More details about these and other programming will be announced early in the semester. We look forward to welcoming the community back for another spring of thoughtful exploration of AI at AILA.
Featured AI News
It’s hard to keep up with all the AI-related News these days, but here are a couple stories that have us thinking and discussing. Let us know what AI News stories have you riveted!
AI Bias in Healthcare? NAACP releases reform blueprint
The NAACP just released a new AI blueprint calling for urgent reforms to stop artificial intelligence from deepening racial health disparities. Partnering with Sanofi, they’re pushing a three-tier governance framework that asks hospitals, tech developers, and regulators to run bias audits, enforce “equity-first” standards, and bring in community voices during development.
Recommended Watch
The Thinking Game
Chronicles visionary scientist Demis Hassabis’ relentless pursuit to crack artificial general intelligence, a journey of extraordinary perseverance.
Have Something to Say About AI?
AILA is accepting submissions of opinion or scholarly pieces to be published on our website! The prompt? There is none. Whatever field you are in and however AI is on your mind right now, if you have the urge to say something, then contact us aila@amherst.edu.
Explore Some AI Tools!
Our AI Mentorship and Tools team is always exploring new applications of AI. Access some interesting tools from our website below and explore them freely from with your personal account. Be mindful of bias, accuracy, content ownership, and use of personally identifiable information with these tools. Institutions are evaluating the use and configuration of AI-based tools, so please check with your IT department before using these tools with college or institutional systems or data.
The Artificial Intelligence in the Liberal Arts initiative at Amherst College aims to engage a broad, interdisciplinary community of participants in discussions and activities related to artificial intelligence, exploring and facilitating multi-way interactions between work in artificial intelligence and work across the liberal arts. Our newsletter contains the latest AI-related events, tools, scholarship, and news in AI.