Through the Looking Glass: Reflections on Humanity in the AI Mirror

Please join Professor Shannon Vallor, University of Edinburgh, as she explores how AI, robotics and data science reshape human character.

Contrary to the media hype and doom stories designed to fascinate and terrify us, the threat AI poses to humanity is not that of a superhuman or alien successor. Instead, it’s a real-life version of the ancient Narcissus fable, or Alice’s Wonderland; both stories involve the reality-distorting power of mirrors. Today humans are becoming lost in our own machine reflections, endangering both our cognitive and moral capabilities. Today’s AI is a captivating but distorted mirror of the human mind; yet mirrors can also be tools for self-inspection and care. How can we redesign AI for these aims?

Bring friends and enjoy coffee and snacks.  Childcare is provided on the youth floor for children of all ages starting at 9:00 AM.

Zoom Meeting ID: 447 525 3893

Passcode: Brick62

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4475253893?pwd=Qgrb85atUUp9tJ8v3tQcrlIVHEMTeH.1&omn=83689552197

Professor Shannon Vallor FRSE is the Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. She codirects the Centre for Technomoral Futures in the university’s interdisciplinary Edinburgh Futures Institute. 

Prof. Vallor’s research explores how AI, robotics, and data science reshape human character: our habits, virtues and capabilities. Professor Vallor's work includes advising policymakers and industry bodies on the ethical design and use of AI, and she is a former Visiting Researcher and AI Ethicist at Google.

She is the recipient of multiple prizes and awards for her research, including the 2026 Barwise Prize in Philosophy and Computing from the American Philosophical Association, the 2026 Leadership Award from the UK’s AI and Robotics Research Awards, and the 2022 Covey Award from the International Association of Computing and Philosophy. She is a standing member of Stanford University’s One Hundred Year Study of Artificial Intelligence (AI100), EY’s Global AI Advisory Council, and a member of the Oversight Board of the Ada Lovelace Institute.

She is the author of two monographs, Technology and the Virtues: A Philosophical Guide to a Future Worth Wanting, from Oxford University Press in 2016, and The AI Mirror: How to Reclaim Our Humanity in an Age of Machine Thinking, from Oxford University Press in 2024. The AI Mirror has been translated into multiple languages and was shortlisted by the Royal Institute of Philosophy for the 2024 Al-Rodhan Book Prize.  Prof. Vallor was profiled in 2024 as one of Fast Company’s AI20 leaders and by Vox for their 2024 Future Perfect 50 list.

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