The McDonald Faith and Global Engagement Distinguished Lecture Series

GOD and AI: WHO’S IN CONTROL?

Professor Ruth Okediji

Jeremiah Smith Jr. Professor, Harvard Law School

Date:    12 February 2025 (Wed)
Time:   7:00pm – 8:30pm
Venue: Rayson Huang Theatre, HKU

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) will increasingly outperform human beings in a growing number and variety of routine and complex tasks. And yet, intelligence alone may not be adequate for a just society, with laws and policies that promote a flourishing humanity. If AI can offer solutions to our most pressing global challenges, will humanity or AI reign and can AI become more human than us?

About the Speaker

Ruth L. Okediji is the Jeremiah Smith, Jr., Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Co-Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, and Faculty Director of the Harvard Program on Biblical Law and Christian Legal Studies. Her scholarship examines innovation policy, the digital economy, and global knowledge governance and has authored an array of publications on the relationship between IP protection and human flourishing. Prof. Okediji has served as a policy advisor to inter-governmental organizations, regional economic communities, and national governments including the UN High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines. She was named one of the 50 most influential figures in IP by Managing IP and received the 2019 Public Knowledge IP3 Award. In 2023, she was awarded the Barry Prize for Distinguished Intellectual Achievement from the American Academy of Sciences and Letters.