Finding Virtue in the Generative Revolution
Generative AI offers incredible power, but how does it shape our human character? Tom Stapleford, associate professor in Notre Dame’s Program of Liberal Studies, applies the timeless wisdom of virtue ethics to the generative revolution, exploring the moral consequences of a technology that is not just a tool, but a powerful, habit-forming force.
Experience the Episode
Generative AI offers incredible power, but how does it shape our human character? Tom Stapleford, associate professor in Notre Dame’s Program of Liberal Studies, applies the timeless wisdom of virtue ethics to the generative revolution, exploring the moral consequences of a technology that is not just a tool, but a powerful, habit-forming force.
The New AI is sponsored on ThinkND by the Technology and Digital Studies Program in the College of Arts & Letters. This program collaborates with the Computer Science and Engineering Department and other departments around the University to offer the Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science, the Minor in Data Science, and the Idzik Computing & Digital Technologies Minor.
MoreMeet the Faculty: Tom Stapleford
Tom Stapleford studies the human sciences, especially economics, where his work intersects American political history and the history of capitalism. He also has strong interests in virtue ethics, artificial intelligence, and historical epistemology (the joint historical and philosophical study of ways of reasoning).
Stapleford is the author of The cost of Living in America: A Political History of Economic Statistics (Cambridge, 2009) and co-editor of Science, Technology, and Virtues (Oxford 2021) and Building Chicago Economics: New Perspectives on the Hisotry of America’s Most Powerful Economics Program (Cambridge, 2011). He has published articles in a diverse set of journals including the Journal of American History, Isis: Journal of the History of Science Society, History of Political Economy, and Labor History. He is currently writing a book manuscript that uses virtue ethics to think about how to integrate expertise with democratic governance, and he is the director for the Notre Dame Program on AI and the Development of Ethics in Agents (ND-PAIDEIA).
Stapleford has been awarded major grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Templeton Religion Trust, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the John Templeton Foundation. He has served on the editorial board for Isis: Journal of the History of Science Society, was Associate Editor for Studies in the History & Philophy of Science Part A, and a member of the Executive Committee Committee for the History of Economics Society. He is on the editorial boards for History of Political Economy, Oeconomia, and Studies in the History & Philosphy of Science.