Brett Frischmann: Re-Engineering Humanity

Wed 24 April 2019

Faculty of Law

When and how do humans become programmable? Can we detect when this happens? How will we evaluate it? What makes us human? What about being human matters?

Humans have been shaped by technology since the dawn of time. Yet techno-social engineering of humans exists on an unprecedented scale and scope, and it is only growing more pervasive as we embed networked sensors in our public and private spaces, our devices, our clothing, and ourselves.

Brett Frischmann will examine how digital networked technologies affect our humanity. Instead of focusing on the doomsday scenario of super-intelligent, sentient AI enslaving humans, Frischmann will focus on how we engineer ourselves, how we outsource critical thinking to supposedly smart tech, and in doing so, risk deskilling ourselves. In short, Frischmann is less concerned with the engineering of intelligent machines than the engineering of unintelligent humans.

The discussion will be followed by a drinks reception. Registration is essential.



Brett Frischmann is the Charles Widger Endowed University Professor in Law, Business and Economics, Villanova University, an affiliated scholar of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, and a trustee for the Nexa Center for Internet & Society, Politecnico di Torino. He teaches courses in intellectual property, Internet law, and technology policy. Frischmann is a prolific author, whose articles have appeared in numerous leading academic journals. He also has published important books on the relationships between infrastructural resources, governance, commons, and spillovers, including Infrastructure: The Social Value of Shared Resources (Oxford University Press, 2012), Governing Knowledge Commons (Oxford University Press, 2014, with Michael Madison and Katherine Strandburg), and Governing Medical Knowledge Commons (Cambridge University Press, Winter 2017, with Michael Madison and Katherine Strandburg).

Cost: Free