On October 28, 2026, I was part of a panel, along with Oscar Cantú, Jessica Riskin, Meghan Sullivan, and moderator Chiara Sabatti, on “Art, Culture, and Narrative in the Age of AI” at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI’s 2026 conference, “Confronting Our AI Future: Hope, Fear, and the Choices Ahead.”
Panel Description:
When machines can write, imagine, and converse, who gets to tell the story of what comes next? A historian, a bishop, a philosopher, and a media theorist ask what’s worth protecting about being human, whose voices AI might erase, and whether this fear is new or just the latest panic about a new medium.
Speakers:
- Oscar Cantú: Bishop of San José, California, and president of the California Catholic Conference of Bishops. A theologian by training, he has spoken internationally on human dignity, peace, and human rights.
- Shane Denson: Professor of Film and Media Studies in the Department of Art & Art History. His research takes a media-philosophical approach to film, digital media, and computational culture, including how algorithmic imaging reshapes perception. He is the author of four books, including Discorrelated Images (2020) and Post-Cinematic Bodies (2023).
- Jessica Riskin: Francis and Charles Field Professor of History. She studies the history of science and technology and her research traces the centuries-old debate over machines, life, and artificial life. She is the author of The Restless Clock and, most recently, The Power of Life.
- Meghan Sullivan: Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. She serves as Director of the University-wide Ethics Initiative and is the founding director of Notre Dame’s Institute for Ethics and the Common Good She leads DELTA, a national initiative on AI and human dignity, and is the author of The Good Life Method.
- Chiara Sabatti (Moderator): Professor of Biomedical Data Science and of Statistics, and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI)
Confronting Our AI Future: Hope, Fear, and the Choices Ahead is a Stanford HAI conference examining the anxiety that AI’s rapid acceleration has raised for students, workers, and leaders, and the choices that will shape what comes next. It took place on October 28, 2026, on the Stanford campus.