[Linganth] LLMs and Ling Anth Reading Group - Webb Keane - Dec 16 - 18:00-20:00 CET

[Joseph Wilson]

I’ll be there,
Thanks
Joe

From: Language Machines <languagemachinesnetwork at gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, November 23, 2024 at 10:26 AM
To: linganth at listserv.linguistlist.org <linganth at listserv.linguistlist.org>, elan at lists.easaonline.org <elan at lists.easaonline.org>, medianthro at lists.easaonline.org <medianthro at lists.easaonline.org>
Subject: LLMs and Ling Anth Reading Group - Webb Keane - Dec 16 - 18:00-20:00 CET
Dear Language Machines Network,

We'd like to invite you to our next reading group meeting. We'll discuss chapter 5 "Superhumans: Artificial Intelligence, Spirits and Shamans Abstract for ELAN" of Webb Keane's new book Animals, Robots, Gods on December 16, from 18:00-20:00 CET. See below for the schedule of future meetings.

Abstract: This chapter is part of a book about human relations with near- and quasi- humans, as well as actual humans who are unable to act the part. Please understand that this book is an effort to communicate with a non-anthropological, even non-academic readership. Therefore, although one of its subtexts is to convey some of the basic insights of semiotic and linguistic anthropology (especially regarding social interaction), I do not say so--I believe the word "semiotic" never appears in the book. I don't want to scare away the readers I have in mind, people who may be educated and intellectually curious, but are outsiders to our fields. Here are some overarching claims the book makes: (1) Most of the discussion of new technology (my focus is on self- driving vehicles, robots, and generative AI) is confined to "western," rationalistic, secular elites with little or no knowledge of or interest in perspectives from non-elite people of "the west," the "non-western," the religious, or simply people in the past. The book argues something that may be conventional for anthropologists, but is utterly controversial for most philosophers, ethicists, or computer scientists, that we need to learn from those other perspectives. (2) Some of the moral panic and utopian exhilaration around new technologies comes from the assumption that what we are encountering is wholly unprecedented. The book argues that certain ways of responding to new technologies are variations on familiar practices like divination, consulting oracles, or sacrificing animals. (3) Parenthetically, the book also tries to model one way we anthropologists can learn from one another's particularistic studies. (4) Using examples from across the ethnographic record, it looks at people dealing with loved ones in vegetative states, hunters and sacrificers interacting with the animals they kill, arguments around organ transplants, dealings with avatars and shrines, anthropomorphic relations with robots, and quasi-religious responses to GenAI. (5) The overarching claim is that when people treat near-humans as moral subjects, especially through second person address, they are taking responsibility for what their own lives require and assuring that the world is not ethically neutral.
We look forward to seeing you there!

Anna, Siri, Michael

RSVP here: languagemachinesnetwork at gmail.com<mailto:languagemachinesnetwork at gmail.com> to receive the Zoom link and the PDF of the article (not to be circulated, please).

Schedule:
December 16 - Webb Keane (Michigan)
January 20 - Courtney Handman (UT Austin)
February 17 - Ole Pütz (Bielefeld)
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