There’s something different on the Benedictine calendar today.
The Symposium on Transforming Culture begins September 4, and this year’s theme is “The Church in an Algorithmic Age.” More than 70 presentations will explore the challenges and opportunities AI and technology present for faith, culture, education, medicine, philosophy, media, and more.
Ryan has a more immediate question:
What exactly is an algorithmic age?
Algorithms help decide what we see.
What we watch.
What we listen to.
That sounds pretty useful to Ryan—especially if an algorithm can figure out what he likes better than he can.
Sarah isn’t entirely convinced.
And our architecture student has an even simpler response.
Could an algorithm tell her what building she ought to draw?
Probably.
Is she going to ask it?
“I’m not asking it.”
Maybe that’s one of the interesting questions of the algorithmic age: not simply what technology can tell us, but what we still want to discover, choose, create—and love—for ourselves.
Today’s ROOK is inspired by something actually happening at Benedictine College this weekend.
♜ ROOK — new every day at noon.
Different adventures. Same journey.