2024 Lecture Series Keynote: David Eagleman: What Does AI Mean for Humans? The Road to Augmented Intelligence

Join us for the Natural History Museum of Utah’s 2024 Lecture Series Keynote address by neuroscientist and bestselling author David Eagleman. In an era when what we know about intelligence is changing fast, Eagleman will address whether human creatives are likely to find themselves unemployed by modern artificial intelligence. Eagleman will also explore another set of questions: while generative AI is blowing everyone’s minds, is it intelligent like humans, or is it just playing impressive statistical games? Could AI reach or exceed our level of intelligence, and how would we know when it gets there? Traditional tests for intelligence, such as the Turing or Lovelace test, have long been surpassed. In this keynote address, David will propose a novel test of intelligence.

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Stanford University, an internationally bestselling author, and a Guggenheim Fellow. Dr. Eagleman’s areas of research include sensory substitution, time perception, vision, and synesthesia; he also studies the intersection of neuroscience with the legal system, and in that capacity he directs the Center for Science and Law. Eagleman is the author of many books, including Livewired, The Runaway Species, The Brain, Incognito, and Wednesday is Indigo Blue. He is also the author of a widely adopted textbook on cognitive neuroscience, Brain and Behavior, as well as a bestselling book of literary fiction, Sum, which has been translated into 32 languages, turned into two operas, and named a Best Book of the Year by Barnes and Noble. Dr. Eagleman writes for the Atlantic, New York Times, Economist, Time, Discover, Slate, Wired, and New Scientist, and appears regularly on National Public Radio and BBC to discuss both science and literature. He has been a TED speaker, a guest on the Colbert Report, and profiled in the New Yorker magazine. He has spun several companies out of his lab, including Neosensory, a company which uses haptics for sensory substitution and addition. He runs the science podcast Inner Cosmos and is the writer and presenter of The Brain, an Emmy-nominated television series on PBS and BBC.