TDF5

While the technical discourse of "Digital Freedom" often focuses on algorithmic transparency and data privacy, the ethical landscape of our digital future is equally shaped by the stories we tell. In this 20 minute session, Dr. Curtis Runstedler explores how contemporary AI narratives -from the tragic real-world experiment of hitchBOT to the speculative prose of Kazuo Ishiguro - redefine the traditional parameters of trust.

Moving beyond the standard inquiry of whether humans can trust machines, Dr. Runstedler pivots to a more provocative question central to his research: Can robots trust humans?. By examining the "compliance" and "sentience" of AI characters in 21st-century fiction, the presentation highlights a profound "compliance paradox", where we demand moral perfection and emotional labor from AI while simultaneously maintaining an underlying aversion to their advancement.
Key areas of exploration include:

The Vulnerability of the Machine: Analyzing the destruction of hitchBOT as a symptom of deeper human anxieties regarding robotic agency.
The "Artificial Friend" as a Mirror: How literature exposes a crisis of attention, where trust is often a performance of power rather than a mutual bond.
Narrative as Simulation: Why literary "storyworlds" are vital for anticipating the societal and policy-based frictions of human-robot integration.

This seminar argues that true digital freedom requires us to deconstruct the lenses through which we view AI, acknowledging that the future of human-AI relations depends as much on human empathy as it does on algorithmic reliability.