Profs and Pints Metro Baltimore

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “How AI Alters Thinking,” on dealing with artificial intelligence’s capacity to change and undermine our thought processes, with Eli Alshanetsky, assistant professor of philosophy at Temple University, principal investigator at its Cognitive Integrity Lab, and author of an upcoming book on AI and freedom of thought.

[Doors open at 3. The talk starts at 4:30. The room is open seating. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-how-ai-alters-thinking ]

Doctors who give bad advice can be sued for malpractice. Teachers belong to a profession with set standards. When artificial intelligence guides you, however, that guidance comes with a disclaimer: Use at your own risk.

Every day millions of people take that risk, and usually AI seems genuinely helpful. But even if AI gives us good answers, might its use over time do bad things to how we think?

Explore the relationship between AI and our own minds with Eli Alshanetsky, whose Cognitive Integrity Lab studies how artificial intelligence changes how we think, learn, and build trust. Author of Articulating a Thought and the upcoming book Freedom of Thought in the Age of AI, he’s on the cutting edge of efforts to answer AI-related questions such as: How can we tell when work is truly our own? How can technology support rather than replace authorship and reflection? What does trust mean when AI mediates our relationships with others and with our own thoughts?

To set up his discussion of potential consequences of AI, he’ll describe how social media’s impact on society serves as a preview.

Social media didn’t just give people what they wanted to click on, it actually changed what they regarded as click-worthy. It broke attention spans and fueled radicalization across millions of very different people. It left us with people who doom-scroll for hours, who can’t focus, who don’t know what to trust anymore.

If you’d shown people this version of themselves ten years ago, would they have chosen it?

Artificial intelligence is making a similar deal with us, but the stakes are higher. It isn’t chasing clicks. It’s optimized for giving you the most satisfying response to whatever is on your mind right now.

The risk over time isn’t just that you’ll get lazy. More profoundly, even when you think hard, your sense of what counts as good thinking—as well as what sounds like you—will shift to match what AI has been feeding you.

We’ll consider what kind of person this produces and whether this is someone we want to be or want children to become. Professor Alshanetsky will lay out a practical framework, which he calls “the interaction layer,” for using AI without letting it replace the thinking it’s supposed to support. He’ll also talk about what AI-related concerns should be the focus of parents and educators. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: Illustration by David S. Soriano / Creative Commons.

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “The Power of Protest Literature,” an exploration of plays, prose, and films as drivers of change, with Hunter Plummer, assistant teaching professor of English at Loyola University Maryland and scholar of American literature and queer theater.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-power-of-protest .]

We live in an era of renewed activism, with protests seeming to become everyday parts of life. In the eyes of many involved in such actions, to protest is to be American.

In the eyes of literature professor Hunter Plummer, a passion for protest is woven especially into the identity of the American writer. His American Literature survey course at Loyola University asks students to read both literature as protest and literature that is about protests. It also encourages students to view protests, in themselves, as “texts” to be studied. It regards America’s history and literature as a series of defiant acts and calls to action by and for marginalized communities, rather than as a vision of the country crafted by those in power.

Join Dr. Plummer at Baltimore’s Section 771 bar for a rich exploration of protest literature throughout our nation’s history.

We’ll look at works including Henry David Thoreau’s treatise on civil disobedience, Lorraine Hansberry’s lesser-known play about 1960s leftist politics, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, and Larry Kramer’s autobiographical remembrance of the AIDS epidemic’s tense early days, The Normal Heart. We’ll explore what these works can teach us, from offering practical protesting advice to instilling in us a belief that change is possible.

Dr. Plummer will discuss how all of these works demand their readers’ engagement in seeking change through political engagement and direct action. He’ll invite you to consider that reading about protest is one thing, thinking about protest is another, but actually protesting as the characters in these works do represents the only way to attain the justice that we hope for. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Bar doors open at 5 pm. The talk starts at 6:30.)

Image by Canva.

Profs and Pints Baltimore presents: “Exploring the Deep Sea,” a scholarly dive into an enormous and little-understood ecosystem, with Melissa Betters, deep ocean explorer and deep-sea biologist at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

[Doors open at 5. The talk starts at 6:30. The room is open seating. Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/baltimore-exploring-deep-sea ]

If you’re afraid of the deepest, darkest reaches of the ocean, you aren’t alone. For centuries, humans have imagined the ocean’s depths to be inhabited by all manner of monsters, from the Kraken to Godzilla.

But what is the cost of viewing over 70% of our planet with fear and aversion? Who benefits from that?

Come to see the deep sea as far more worthy of fascination than fear with the help of Dr. Melissa Betters, a biologist and marine ecosystem researcher who has made nine trips to the bottom of the ocean and taught at Bryn Mawr College and Temple University.

She’ll take you on a scholarly exploration of various deep-sea ecosystems around the world such as deep coral reefs and boiling-hot hydrothermal vents. We’ll get to know some of the deep ocean’s captivating biodiversity, examining where it lives, what it does, and why it matters to us.

With her help you’ll come to see the deep ocean as a tapestry of different environments, each of which host their own forms of life and present their own suite of ecological challenges.

Importantly, we’ll also look at how the deep ocean is portrayed in both myth and media, considering how our perceptions are skewed by the rhetoric used to describe it and the images used to depict it.

Despite appearing far-removed and out of reach, the deep ocean is still a part of our planet, subject to all the same challenges and human impacts as life on land. The final part of this talk will examine the variety of human impacts affecting the deep ocean and actions we can take to protect Earth’s final frontier. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID.)

Image: Magnoteuthis magna, the most common deep-ocean squid, as photographed in Kinlan Canyon off of Rhode Island (NOAA Ocean Exploration photo).

Profs and Pints Metro Baltimore presents: “A Deep Dive into the Declaration of Independence,” on the origins and impact of America’s founding document, with Denver Brunsman, chairman of George Washington University’s history department, lecturer at Mount Vernon, and noted scholar of early American history and the American Revolution.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/declaration-of-independence .]

The celebration of our nation’s 250th anniversary will take on much deeper meaning if you take time to fully understand and appreciate the document that declared our independence from England and gave rise to the American experiment.

Learn essential lessons about the Declaration of Independence by coming to the debut of Profs and Pints at the Guinness Open Gate Brewery in Halethorpe, Md., just outside Baltimore. The speaker, Denver Brunsman, is an incredibly engaging speaker who has built a big following among Profs and Pints fans in and around Washington D.C.

Professor Brunsman will start by discussing the Declaration’s background, composition, and philosophical underpinnings.

You’ll learn how by 1776 American colonists had resisted British policies for thirteen years and endured open warfare with Britain for more than a year. We’ll look at how this imperial crisis influenced the Declaration’s primary author, Thomas Jefferson, as well as the larger Declaration Committee and the Second Continental Congress.

In recent years, scholars have focused particularly on the previously underappreciated grievance section of the Declaration. Rather than simply being an afterthought to the more famous preamble (“all men are created equal”), the grievances followed a logical order that carefully presented the case against King George III and the British Empire for a “candid world” to consider. Professor Brunsman will fill you in on how that list of grievances rallied Americans and other nations to the cause.

A document both timeless and of its time, the Declaration quickly soared beyond its humble origins as a committee report to become synonymous with American independence and an inspiration for rebellion elsewhere. Dr. Brunsman will consider the place of the Declaration in American life, from the eighteenth century to today, and how the document helped shape much of American history while influencing “the course of human events” throughout the world.

The talk will close with customary toasts from the American revolutionary era. Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah! (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From an idealized Jean Leon Gerome Ferris painting of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams drafting the Declaration of Independence.