Neil Simonetti organized an Artificial Intelligence Symposium on February 21st, 2025, including individualized presentations about AI from students, staff, faculty, and alumni of Bryn Athyn College. Speakers included Charles "Chuck" Ebert Ph.D., a former BAC mathematics instructor, who discussed how AI affects the New Church and how it affects the world as a whole. It’s used for language translation, simulations, and natural language processing. Chuck shares how these processes work and how they connect on a New Church level.

Daniel Kees, a Bryn Athyn College senior spoke about racial bias in facial recognition. “The widespread use of AI surveillance has exposed systemic biases that disproportionately affect marginalized communities,” Daniel said. He gave examples of how bias within AI facial surveillance systems can lead to both wrongful arrests, and people evading arrests. 

Next to present was Declan Williams, another senior, who spoke in depth about artificial sentience and the connection of computer science with philosophy. Declan discusses the genetic algorithm, neuroevolution, and how to determine if AI has become sentient. 

Levi McFall, the last BAC senior to speak, spoke about AI and New Christian Bible Study, having interned at the website and noticing that AI was the solution for several of their problems. These included the word and phrase finder, the chatbot, and a few ideas Levi had for the future of the New Christian Bible Study.

After a short break, BAC’s library director Carol Traveny stood up to discuss her research on the environmental impact of generative AI. She shared the difference between generative AI and predictive AI, the environmental cost of generative AI, and considered whether the cost of AI use is worth the gain.

Wrapping up the night came Tommy Frazier, a computer science teacher at BAC, to discuss the “Dead Internet Theory.” He discussed social media bots, their purposes, and how—in theory—social media bots may someday outnumber real social media users, creating a “dead internet.”

Watch parts 1 and 2 of the AI Symposium:

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