Artificial intelligence is an exciting and very active area of research in computer science. Many describe the ultimate goal of this line of work to be the creation of machines with “human-like” intelligence. Popular culture leaves us with many images of what success might look like, from the killer soldier robots in The Terminator, to the oppressed robots of Blade Runner, to the special agents in The Matrix, to the idyllic companion in Her. Unfortunately (or not, depending upon your perspective), none of these scenarios will materialize any time soon—contrary to media hype, machines exhibiting truly human-like intelligence are still way off in the distant future.

Nevertheless, we have entered the Age of AI. This technology may not be up to creating the kinds the beings imagined in science fiction movies, but it is powerful, it is omnipresent, and it is exerting a massive influence on the affairs of humans. Is this influence good or bad? In this talk, I will explore the answer to that question from an Aristotelian/Thomistic perspective of human flourishing: do these technologies make us more or less human?

Dr. Michael Ryall’s Biography

Michael Ryall is Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto. As an economist trained in game theory, his best-known research is on the Value Capture Model, a theory that provides a mathematical foundation for business strategy. His career-long passion is investigating human learning in complex, interactive, and dynamic settings. Most recently, this interest led him into the intersection of game theory, causal inference, AI, and philosophy. His research regularly appears in peer-reviewed journals, such as Management Science, the Strategic Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, and the Economic Journal, among others.

His teaching spans a wide range of topics, including core business strategy, advanced strategy, business ethics, data analytics for causal inference, managerial economics, and game theory. He has taught at the undergraduate, MBA, Masters, Ph.D., and executive levels.

His professional service history includes various editorial roles at leading scholarly journals, co-founding two academic associations, and the organization of many scholarly conferences and symposia. He has successfully raised funding for his research from prestigious granting bodies, including the A. P. Sloan Foundation, the Australian Research Council, and the Humanities Research Council of Canada, among others.