In our recent Vik-Bailey lecture, Antón Barba-Kay – the Robert B. Aird Chair of Humanities at Deep Springs College in California – took a deep dive into the topic of digital technology and its potential to end human nature.
Hosted at CGIS South on April 11, the lecture was well attended – including a full seminar group, whose students are currently studying Barba-Kay’s book A Web of Our Own Making: The Nature of Digital Formation, which was published last year by Cambridge University Press.
During his presentation and audience Q&A, Barba-Kay deliberated on the themes of AI and proving one’s humanness, Aristotle’s theory of the good life and how it compares to modern-day living, and the effects of digital technology on creativity, privacy, community, and well-being.
“Is the internet part of the good life in the way that shelter, clothing, and music are? Is a smartphone? Is social media?” asked Barba-Kay. “If you were asked to envision utopia, will Gmail, Tinder and Hulu have a place in it? But if you could make the choice never to use digital technology again, would you do so?”
Photo by Dylan Goodman, credit The Harvard Gazette
The event was covered by Liz Mineo, Staff Writer at The Harvard Gazette, with the article perfectly capturing Barba-Kay’s sentiments on ‘how the internet is changing us – not for the better’. Read the full piece here.