An independent historian of technology, George Dyson will speak April 10 in LaRose Digital Theatre in the Koury Business Center through the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar Program.
Technology historian George Dyson will visit campus on April 9 and 10 to talk about where artificial intelligence is taking society with a look back at how it has developed through time.
As part of his visit to campus, Dyson will deliver a lecture, “Artificial Intelligence: From Analog to Digital and Back” at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, April 10, in the LaRose Digital Theatre in the Koury Business Center. Dyson’s visit is part of the Phi Beta Kappa Society’s Visiting Scholar Program and follows the induction of Elon students into its Phi Beta Kappa chapter on Monday, April 9, during which Dyson will offer congratulatory remarks.
Dyson is an independent historian of technology who has written books on subjects including the development and redevelopment of the Aleut kayak, (“Baidarka: The kayak”), the evolution of artificial intelligence, (“Darwin Among the Machines“), a path not taken into space (“Project Orion: The True Story of the Atomic Spaceship”), and the transition from numbers that mean things to numbers that do things in the aftermath of World War II (“Turing’s Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe”).
His books have been translated into more than half a dozen languages, and he is currently working on a project titled “Analogia” that opens with the campaign against the Chiricahua Apache in the 19th century and closes with the superseding of the digital revolution by something else. Dyson has lectured widely and contributed to Scientific American, Nature, Forbes, Discover, Wired, Atlantic, Make and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. His early life is described in Kenneth Brower’s “The Starship and the Canoe.”
Along with his Tuesday night lecture, Dyson will participate in a “coffee and conversation” session on Monday from 10 to 11 a.m. in The Maker Hub – Downtown.