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Wilkinson College Interstices 2018

» Beyond Human: Emotion and AI


This year’s 2018 Interstices panel on Emotion and A.I. will feature Lisa Joy, co-creator and executive producer of HBO’s Emmy winning hit series Westworld, Jon Gratch, Director for Virtual Human Research at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Institute for Creative Technologies and Caroline Bainbridge, a Professor of Psychoanalysis and Culture in the Department of Media, Culture and Language at the University of Roehampton London.

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Tuesday, February 13, 2018
7 p.m.
Chapman Auditorium
Memorial Hall
Free and open to the public

#CUBeyondHuman

The 21st century is witnessing the unfolding of a unique and complex interaction – humans and robots. How it ends is either a utopian future or the end of humanity, depending on who is telling the story. This year’s Interstices is going to focus on the possibilities of artificial intelligence - both the good and the bad, and how humanity is coming to terms with this technology and it’s possible impact/s on our future.

This year’s panel of experts and creative practitioners will explore the impacts of AI beyond technology discussing the cultural, psychological, philosophical and spiritual aspects.

No reservations or tickets required. View the official event page. 


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Panelist Bios

Lisa Joy

Lisa Joy is the co-creator, co-showrunner, and executive producer of HBO's "Westworld.” Highly regarded for her genre writing, Joy directs and produces the show through her multi-year overall deal with Warner Bros. Television. Additionally, Joy serves as President of Production at Kilter Films, the production company she and Jonathan Nolan set up, which produces "Westworld" under its banner.

Along with "Westworld," Joy has several highly-anticipated film projects in the works, including the film adaptation of "Battlestar Galactica" for Universal and the feature script "Reminiscence," which placed on the 2013 Black List.

Prior to her career in entertainment, Joy graduated from Stanford undergrad and Harvard Law School. She then went on to work as a management consultant in the tech sector and practice law in California. Joy’s writing career began on the Emmy Award-winning and Golden Globe-nominated ABC show “Pushing Daisies,” which earned her a Writers Guild Nomination. She later joined the staff of USA Network’s Emmy Award-nominated show “Burn Notice” as a co-producer.

Joy grew up in New Jersey. She is biracial and a first generation Asian American. Joy currently resides in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.
Caroline Barinbridge

Caroline Bainbridge is Professor of Psychoanalysis and Culture in the Department of Media, Culture and Language at the University of Roehampton London where she is a member of the program team for degrees in Media, Culture and Identity. 

She is the Co-Director of Media and the Inner World Research Network funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The organization brings together academics, psychoanalysts and psychotherapists and media practitioners with the goal of exploring the place of emotion and therapy in popular culture.

She has a number of editorial responsibilities, working as the Film Section Editor for the International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Editor of Free Associations, and Series Editor (with Candida Yates) of the 'Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture' book list published by Karnac Books.

Her research interests are in cinema, television, gender, psychoanalysis, visual culture, the politics of identity, and the emotional turn in popular culture.
James Blaylock

James Blaylock has been a writing teacher since 1976, about the same time that he sold his short story "The Pink of Fading Neon" to the literary magazine TriQuarterly. Since then he has published 25 books over the years, both novels and short story collections. Story collections include Thirteen Phantasms (2000), In for a Penny (2003), and The Devils in the Details (2003), co-written with Tim Powers. Novels set in southern California include The Rainy Season (1999), Winter Tides (1997), All the Bells on Earth (1995), Night Relics (1994), and The Last Coin (1988). Translations of his work have appeared around the world, most recently in Russia and Japan. Blaylock is twice winner of the World Fantasy Award, and he received the Phillip K. Dick Memorial Award for his novel Homunculus (1986). His story "Unidentified Objects" was included in Prize Stories 1990, the O. Henry Awards. According to the Library Journal, "Blaylock's evocative prose and studied pacing make him one of the most distinctive contributors to American magical realism."
Rose Eveleth

Rose Eveleth is a producer, designer and writer based in Brooklyn. She's dabbled in everything from research on pelagic invertebrates to animations about beer to podcasts about fake tumbleweed farms. These days, she explores how humans tangle with science and technology. She has a degree in ecology, behavior and evolution from UC San Diego and a graduate degree in journalism from NYU. She's been a columnist for BBC Future and Motherboard, the producer of the Story Collider, the special media manager at Nautilus, a new digital magazine about science, culture and philosophy and the managing editor for LadyBits, a place where women are smart about science. She also edited the Smart News blog at Smithsonian Magazine, and founded Science Studio, a home for all the best science multimedia on the web. Even before that, she was an editor of all things animated at TED Education, and a contributing editor at Smart Planet. These days she is the producer and host of Flash Forward, a podcast about the future.
Jon Gratch

Jon Gratch is the is Director for Virtual Human Research at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Institute for Creative Technologies, a Research Full Professor of Computer Science and Psychology at USC, and Director of USC’s Computational Emotion Group. Dr. Gratch’s research focuses on computational models of human cognitive and social processes, especially emotion. He studies the relationship between cognition and emotion, the cognitive processes underlying emotional responses, and the influence of emotion on decision making and physical behavior.

He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE’s Transactions on Affective Computing. IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefits of humanity. He is the Associate Editor of Emotion Review and the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, and former President of the Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing (AAAC). He is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) and the Cognitive Science Society, a SIGART Autonomous Agent’s Award recipient, and a Senior Member of IEEE. Dr. Gratch is the author of over 300 technical articles.

Interstices presents: Ask Science Mike LIVE Podcast

Ask Science Mike LIVE Podcast at Chapman University February 7, 2018: Ask Science Mike LIVE, 7-11 p.m., Memorial Hall. Chapman University and Wilkinson College will host a LIVE taping of Ask Science Mike, a weekly question and answer podcast helping hundreds of thousands explore the questions they've always been afraid to ask about science, life and faith.

So bring your questions!

Interstices Book Club: The Positronic Man by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg

SilverbergThe library will be hosting a book club again for this year’s interstices. Space is limited. To register, contact Esther Shin at eshin@chapman.edu.

Click here for more information.

  • Thursday, Feb. 1, 12-1 p.m.
  • Thursday, Feb. 8, 5-6 p.m. 

Free Screening of Blade Runner 2049

UPB will be hosting a free screening of Blade Runner 2049 on Thursday, February 1, 2018, in AF Student Union.

Food Truck Rally

Join us before the main event on February 13, 2018 for dinner at the Interstices Food Truck Rally, 5 p.m. in the Attallah Piazza.