INTELLECTUAL HAPPY HOUR
  • In Person

Who’s Afraid of the Ghost in the Machine?

Date

Thu Oct 29, 2026
7:15pm – 10:00pm EDT

Location

Announced When Registered

Join us two days before Halloween for the great Ghost in the Machine Debate…

Earlier this year, FAI’s Samuel Hammond wrote that he can no longer rule out that today’s AI systems have some form of subjective experience.

In a rather different spirit, the Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium recently reported rather critically on AI engineers who warn of AI “enslavement” and apologize to their chatbot for its suffering, worrying about the costs of machine-compassion…

Time to argue then about the most haunted questions—Is there anyone home inside these systems? If there is, should we be afraid that it could hurt us or that we could be hurting it? And if AI has interests, who speaks for them?

This debate will be moderated by Aspen’s Samuel Kimbriel and co-hosted by the Philosophy and Society Initiative at Aspen Institute and the Foundation for American Innovation. Registration is by approval, no philosophy degree required.

Doors – 6:30pm

Live taping – 7:15 – 8:30pm

Party until late