10/02/2024

Dear Campus Community,

I am pleased to announce that on Thursday, Oct. 17, Professor Frank Pasquale will deliver the Fall 2024 Susan Resneck Pierce Lecture in Public Affairs and the Arts. Pasquale is a Professor of Law at Cornell Tech and Cornell Law School, and is an expert on the law of artificial intelligence (AI), algorithms, and machine learning. His books include The Black Box Society and New Laws of Robotics: Defending Human Expertise in the Age of AI, which analyzes the law and policy influencing the adoption of AI in varied fields. His work has been translated into over a dozen languages, and he is recognized globally as a thought leader in law and technology.

In his lecture, “AI vs. Democracy: Post-Truth Politics and Manipulated Publics,” Pasquale will discuss his assertion that AI is used to undermine democratic principles. He will explore how predictive analytics can create echo chambers and divide the public, while generative AI can produce deepfakes and misinformation. Pasquale will speak to how these technologies, in his view, pose a serious threat to democracy and will argue that we need multiple strategies to address them.

Susan Resneck Pierce Lecture
AI vs. Democracy: Post-Truth Politics and Manipulated Publics 
Presented by Professor Frank Pasquale 
Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024, at 7 p.m. 
Schneebeck Concert Hall 

Tickets are required for entry. Tickets are free for the campus community and $20 for the general public. Tickets can be reserved online or at the Logger Store in Wheelock Student Center.

Established in 2002 in honor of President Emerita Susan Resneck Pierce, this lecture series brings intellectuals, writers, and artists of prominence in public affairs and the arts to Puget Sound. This semester's Pierce Lecture in Public Affairs was informed by faculty members working on the development of programming and curricula at Puget Sound focused on AI and Human Values: America Chambers, Mare Hirsch, Suzanne Holland, Robin Jacobson, Siddharth Ramakrishnan, Justin Tiehen, and Ariela Tubert. We thank them for their creative and thoughtful work in helping to select an engaging speaker to enrich our campus and the wider Tacoma community, and we will share additional information soon about an updated process for selecting Pierce Lecture speakers going forward.

I look forward to seeing you at the lecture.

Sincerely,

Isiaah Crawford, Ph.D. | President