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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
In two public lectures, Hayles will discuss the extent to which criteria of cognition can be applied to artificial intelligence and how the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) will change human writing and the archive of human texts in the long term.
From 14 to 16 May 2025, N. Katherine Hayles will hold two public lectures and a seminar as Albertus Magnus Professor at the University of Cologne. Hayles is James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emerita of Literature and Distinguished Research Professor of English at UCLA. Her main research interests are the connections between science, literature, media and technology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She has received particular recognition for her work on the history of technology and cybernetics, the science of the control, regulation and communication of organisms and machines. Hayles is best known for her book ‘How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics’.
When:
Wednesday, 14 May 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
1st lecture: Modes of Cognition: How AI Creates Meaning
Main Lecture Hall (main building), Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Cologne
Thursday, 15 May 2025 at 7:30 p.m.
2nd lecture: AI as Writer / Reader / Critic: Implications for the Humanities
Main Lecture Hall (main building), Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Cologne
Friday, 16 May 2025 at 12:00 a.m.
Public Seminar on Large Language Models
Auditorium XII (main building), Albertus-Magnus-Platz, 50923 Cologne
The lectures are open to the public. However, participation in the seminar is only possible after registering in advance: https://amp.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/anmeldung
The lectures will be held in English.
In the first lecture, N. Katherine Hayles will present five criteria according to which a system can be considered cognitive and will test them against minimally cognitive systems such as plants and bacteria. The same criteria are then applied to Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 and ChatGPT to show that these also count as cognitive systems. Using the concept of ‘umwelt’ or world environment, the talk will explore overlaps and differences between the world that humans create through their sensory-neurological capacities and the worlds that LLMs create.
In the second lecture, Professor Hayles will take a look at Large Language Models such as ChatGPT and Gemini. These are the first AI systems that are able to create human-equivalent texts and responses. This raises a number of questions, including what impact AI-authored texts will have on the archive of human-authored texts compiled over the centuries.
After many renowned scholars, including Jean-Luc Nancy, Giorgio Agamben, Noam Chomsky, Martha Nussbaum, John Searle, Judith Butler, Eva Illouz and David Wengrow, N. Katherine Hayles is the 18th internationally renowned person to be appointed to the Albertus Magnus Professorship, which was established in 2005. The professorship is named after the medieval polymath Albertus Magnus, who led the general studies of the Dominican Order in Cologne in the mid-13th century. He is considered one of the intellectual fathers of the university, which was founded in 1388.
Professor Dr Andreas Speer
Thomas Institute, University of Cologne
+49 221 470 2309
andreas.speer@uni-koeln.de
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