Session 1 of Albertus evening talks on _Magnifica Humanitas_ 16 and 30
June 2026

--------[My notes ahead of time for my expected contribution]

Points to make: BCS observation

Phase 1: 1960--1970s: AI -> CogSci trajectory from basing AI on what's
understood in Psych/Ling/Anthro/Socio etc. and developing
computational implementable approaches to understanding e.g. human
language.  HMMs

Phase 2, Late 1970s-early 20th: Evidence-based, but with relatively
little evidence by today's standards: a few millions of words of
written (American) English, a few 10s of hours of spoken, simple
probabilistic models, _no_ reference to human process.  ANNs.

Phase 3, 2010s to 2023:  Step-change in the size (of data, of models,
of compute power) and in the complexity of the architecture (LLMs) and
the underlying mathematics.

Apothesis: Release of ChatGPT in April 2023 (?).

But one thing hasn't changed: it's all about the _form_ of the data,
not the substance (BCS).

---------[Start notes during Fr. Patrick's Albertus session 1 talk]

Fr. Patrick Akunne is a philosopher of mind, in particular
neuroscience, at Ibadan Univ.
-==========

Dignity by right of being created and loved by God.  No act is needed
to have it, to deserve it.

Social, Moral, Existential Dignity

Techno-anthropology, that is, the kind of anthropology which is
implicit in the technology, of AI in particular.

[Taiwan example]

Trans- and post- humanism -- AI can help us transcend the
constraints/limitations we currently experience.

"we need to redefine what it means to be human" [whom?]

Things that this opens up:
 1) What it means to be human is open for revision
 2) Materiality is all
 3) Human limitations are _problems_ that can be transcended

-----------[end of notes at the event]

-----------[What follows was written the next morning.
             Maybe notes on MH?]

Hardware/software analogy is the last in a long series of appeals to
the dominant technology of the day.

[Prove that you are a human being example]

Humans can be understood as processors of information.

So trans-humanism is about enhancing us, understood as above.

Problems with the new anthropology

1) As mechanisms which can be dominated, sidestepping their human
   dignity;
2) Value can be defined by efficiency
3) Automation/simulation of human emotion -- replacement of real human
   relationships diminishes the humanity of their interlocutor.
4) Founded on a metaphysics of materialism.  Such a view of the
   essence of human nature, but this means there is no ontological
   dignity left.

Weakness, disability, age are not defects, they are inescapably part
of human nature.

We are the best possible human beings when we help the fit to fit in.

The AI Observer effect [allegedly].