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AI, Power, and the Future of Autonomy: Key Insights from the 2025 Scott Hawkins Lecture

Artificial intelligence is reshaping political power in ways we barely understand, embedding itself into economic and governance structures that shape human behavior—often without our explicit consent. That was the stark warning delivered by Dr. Brian Brock, a theologian and ethicist from Aberdeen University, during the 2025 Scott Hawkins Lecture at SMU. In a talk that […]

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Science & engineering ethics Society & ethics

The ethics of engineering planetary change

Here’s the opening of a fascinating article in this morning’s New York Times: Last year, a private company proposed “fertilizing” parts of the ocean with iron, in hopes of encouraging carbon-absorbing blooms of plankton. Meanwhile, researchers elsewhere are talking about injecting chemicals into the atmosphere, launching sun-reflecting mirrors into stationary orbit above the earth or […]