THE IDEA
How do we evaluate the claims we hear everyday about AI, neuroscience and robotics? The Livescu initiative is built around the tools we already have ready to hand: history, philosophy, anthropology, literature and the arts. Hot-button topics like artificial intelligence or neural enhancement often come pre-formatted by the media, corporate interests, and scientists. They insist that it is something so radically new and so technically complex that, supposedly, no one knows anything about them.
Research in the humanities has long focused attention on the meaning of thinking—not just intelligence—and the issues of humanism, human transformation, the line between the human and the non-human. Rather than throwing out all that seems old, we insist on bringing it into contact with the supposedly new: issues of cognition, artificial intelligence, the relation of the natural and the artificial, the ethical and moral questions of agency and states of mind, and the nature of cognition, affect, and emotion. We ground these questions in a curiosity about and knowledge of biological evolution, neurobiological structure, and abstract engineering and mathematical relations currently being investigated.
Just as importantly, NNAI seeks to bring humanities scholars into conversation with engineers, scientists and practitioners beyond the university. We provide a forum where curious scholars can seed connections, communities and share conversations on neuro, narrative and AI. Our multidisciplinary approach welcomes experts from different fields to discuss central issues of humanism and human and non-human thinking.
Livescu Foundation
NNAI Livescu is funded by the Livescu Foundation, which purpose is to promote, give grants or donations mostly to nonprofit organizations such as public universities and nonprofit research groups focused on futures studies, AI as part of human civilization, cryptocurrencies complement to State monopolies of finances, psychohistory, genetics, comparative literature and human space colonization among others.
Institute for Society and Genetics
NNAI Livescu is part of the Institute for Society and Genetics (ISG) at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA, a world-class university with thousands of faculty engaged in cutting edge research. We strive to connect diverse disciplines by breaking down communication silos, promoting a unified exchange of ideas, as well as to present an original and creative contribution in an international context.
Check the blog post by our director Christopher Kelty for more details on the ideas behind the NNAI Livescu initiative.