Rev. Brian J. Shanley, O.P. President | St. John's University website

The inaugural Arthur F. and Barbara Gianelli Lecture in the Philosophy of Science at St. John’s University took place on April 24, with a focus on the intersection of technology and ethics. The event featured Seth Lazar, Ph.D., a professor at the Australian National University and Principal Investigator of the Machine Intelligence and Normative Theory Laboratory. Dr. Lazar's lecture, titled "On AI Personhood Without Sentience," examined the complex issue of granting legal rights and responsibilities to artificial intelligence systems, which are currently non-sentient.

Dr. Lazar explored the concept of AI personhood—assigning legal status to AI systems based on their functions rather than feelings, akin to the way corporations are granted personhood. Proponents of AI personhood suggest that AI with decision-making capabilities deserves legal recognition, while critics question who should be accountable for AI's actions and the potential harm to human interests.

“I think there are AI agents likely to be developed in the next three to five years, possibly sooner, that might require a serious revision of political theory. AI agents that meet multiple criteria for moral standards,” Dr. Lazar said. “We might be able to build artificial persons—not fictional persons—but entities that have the grounds of moral sentience. This would be big if true.”

The lecture, held at the D’Angelo Center and attended by over 50 people, included a question-and-answer session with St. John’s faculty and administrators. Dr. Lazar, a Distinguished Research Fellow at the University of Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI and contributor to a National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine study, continues to examine the ethics of computing research.

“We are very privileged to have him here to speak with us,” stated Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy.

This new lecture series honors the work of Arthur F. Gianelli, a former professor at St. John’s who passed away in 2023. Arthur Gianelli, Jr. established the Barbara and Arthur Gianelli Scholarship Fund in 2020 to assist students in the University Honors Program. “St. John’s was my father’s professional home for nearly 50 years,” he commented, reflecting on his father’s engagement with philosophical questions related to scientific advancements.

The lecture series is intended to provide a platform for addressing the ethical and faith-related challenges that arise in the wake of scientific progress.