Office of Digital Learning and Inquiry

Higher education stands at a crossroads. Economic, cultural, and technological forces are encouraging and permitting students to cheat in new and more pervasive ways. Generative AI has rendered current assessment regimes obsolete and called traditional pedagogical strategies into question across disciplines. How then, is an instructor to respond in the face of overwhelming change?

Kay Firth-Butterfield, CEO of Good Tech Advisory

AI ethicist Kay Firth-Butterfield discusses how humans and AI can coexist amid widespread hype. From enhanced work to job displacement concerns, she explores what humans must do now to ensure AI serves us—shifting from “what AI will do” to “what humans want AI to do.”

Lead: Matt Lawrence, Associate Professor of Sociology, Middlebury College
Participants: Phil Chodrow, Zara Contractor, Isabelle Langrock, Michelle Leftheris, Obie Porteous, German Reyes, Andrea Vaccari, Hector Vila, and Sarah Lohnes Watulak

Discuss how AI may transform our collective living and working. Join dinner conversations about AI possibilities and challenges we need to engage personally, in teaching and learning, and institutionally. Sponsored by the Collaborative in Conflict Transformation.

Join Middlebury alumni for lunch while hearing about their professional and personal AI experiences. Hear from Mario Ariza ’09, Mike Berkley ’95, Mohan Renganathan ’96, Julisa Salas ’10, and David Ellis ’09 as they share diverse perspectives on AI in practice. 

Laura Splan and Minne Atairu

Two artists explore human-AI coexistence through distinct approaches. Atairu uses algorithmic reconstructions to visualize erased histories; Splan employs AI-assisted modeling exploring biotechnology and body aesthetics. Both probe humanity across flesh, code, and daily patterns while using AI as a collaborative tool and provocation.

Professor Laura Biester (Computer Science) provides an accessible technical introduction to language modeling without requiring extensive math or computer science background. She covers language modeling history, explains how today’s models generate text, and connects technical processes to responsible AI use questions.

Parker Harris, CTO of Slack and Cofounder of Salesforce

Parker Harris ’89 shares insights from leading a major cloud computing company through the AI revolution. He explores workforce displacement, skill development, and the evolving relationship between human creativity and machine intelligence, examining opportunities and responsibilities of large-scale AI adoption. 

Ian Stewart, Executive Director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Ian Stewart will examine pathways through which advancing AI may threaten international peace and security and will explore the mitigation of these risks. This will include examination of AI in relation to strategic competition between the U.S. and China. He will also explore how AI may be leveraged as a tool to support rather than undermine international peace and security.

Melanie Mitchell, Professor at the Santa Fe Institute

AI expert Dr. Melanie Mitchell from the Santa Fe Institute examines how current AI works, its true “intelligence,” and future prospects. From photo recognition to essay writing, she explores AI’s expanding role and what our expectations and concerns should be for near- and long-term developments.

President Baucom in Conversation with Meghan O’Rourke

President Ian Baucom talks with acclaimed writer, and his former student, Meghan O’Rourke on the transformations AI is bringing to higher education. Drawing on O’Rourke’s New York Times opinion piece, and their institutional AI adoption experiences, they examine tensions between AI as enabler versus threat to human creativity and learning.