A.I. Salon Series: The Flourishing of the Human Condition

In the summer of 1956, a group of academics, scientists, and engineers gathered for two months on the Dartmouth College campus at Hanover, New Hampshire to, in the words of attendee Dr. John McCarthy,“concentrate on a problem of devising a way of programming a calculator to formconceptsand to formgeneralizations…”The four organizers, Claude Shannon, John McCarthy, Nathaniel Rochester, and Marvin Minsky, were titans in their fields of Computer Science, Information Theory, and Cybernetics. What resulted would later be coined by Dr. McCarthy as“Artificial Intelligence:”the beginnings of a field that now includes many types of activities that are associated with Human Intelligence: Learning, Reasoning, Perception, and Decision-Making.Now in our year 2026, we are inundated with revolutionary software concept of Large Language Models. And yet, the public feels at wit’s end with the results: how can something deemed as revolutionary as electricity cause such friction and degradation of quality of life in the sphere of the personal life? Gather with panelists from across industries to discuss how A.I. effects different aspects of our lives each session, and converse with your community on these effects of new technology on how we do business, create art, socialize, and live life together.Join us on September 18th at 5:30p for the first installment: WORK— "The Meaning of Productivity."Tickets are $60 per person. All events proceeds to go the Hart Cluett Museum.Other Series Dates:October 9:Education—"Critical Thought in the Age of Automated Thought"October 23:Creativity—"Art and Algorithmic Production"November 30:The Environment—"Data Centers and Our Finite Resources."December 11:Community—"Belonging and Technological Connections"