44th Annual Nash Lecture

Please join us for the 44th Annual Nash Lecture given by Dr. Jordan Joseph Wales.

Mages, Mechanisms, and the Loving Mind: Medieval Theology on AI and Human Formation

It is oft said today that the humanities have been devalued by a society that prizes efficacy and production. This situation inverts the ancient Hellenistic philosophers’ disdain for the techne of mechanical arts as unsuitable to the life of the contemplative who sought to behold the eternal rather than to multiply the temporal. Today, large language models and other AI technologies, paradoxically, manifest apparent thought and reflection–but as a form of techne. Perhaps unexpectedly, medieval writers, both in their theological insight and in their surprisingly strong affection for legends of robots, offer a perspective on AI in relation to our own intelligence that overcomes ancient dichotomies, indicating how we might live in an age of technological efficacy while making sense of and valuing the most humane of goods.

Thursday, March 19, 2026, at 7:00 pm in the Campion College Auditorium, with a reception to follow in the student commons.