Bounded Freedom: Human Expression in the Age of AI

Registration Required: https://www.penningtonlibrary.org/boundedfreedom/

“Civilization now depends on self-deception, perhaps it always has,” writes novelist Ted Chiang in the bestseller Exhalation: Stories. Is generative artificial intelligence giving birth to a new era of self-deception, where anyone without talent or training can make music, sonnets, and film?

We often define civilizations by their historic, artistic, and philosophical advancements. What happens to societies when humans outsource their voices to algorithms trained on the totality of human expression? Will it result in what critics have called the great flattener, reducing what makes people unique and imperfect to the lowest predictive denominator? Or will this technological advancement become a great equalizer, empowering the most vulnerable and those who never had the privilege to unlock their potential? Can any of us be truly free if we are bound to a co-intelligence movement, using AI as a creative companion? Or is the very question itself a threat to civilization and a form of self-deception?

About the Presenter: Dr. Nathan C. Walker is an award-winning First Amendment and human rights educator at Rutgers University, where he teaches AI ethics and law as an Honors College faculty fellow. He is the principal investigator at the AI Ethics Lab, the founding editor of the AI & Human Rights Index, a contributing researcher to the Munich Declaration of AI, Data and Human Rights, and a non-resident research fellow at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Dr. Walker is a certified AI Ethics Officer and has held visiting research appointments at Harvard and Oxford universities. He has also served as an Expert AI Trainer for OpenAI’s Human Data Team, where he applied his expertise to frontier AI models.

This event is part of our 2026 Beyond the Page – an initiative designed to broaden our imaginations and understanding of our world, our neighbors, and ourselves through the joy of sharing a good book.  The featured book Exhalation contains nine stunningly original, provocative, and poignant stories, where author Ted Chiang tackles some of humanity’s oldest questions, along with new quandaries only he could imagine. Please visit PenningtonLibrary.org/2026BeyondThePage for a full calendar of events and more information.