Es Devlin Leads AI & Pottery Summit at Oxford
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- Es Devlin organized an AI and Earth conference at Oxford Kilns, inviting artists, AI researchers, spiritual leaders, academics and global‑tech experts to discuss AI while making pottery.
- Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities – the university’s biggest building project – will open with a public ground‑floor gallery, cinema, theatres, a Passivhaus concert hall and houses the Institute for Ethics in AI.
- Nico Muhly will collaborate with Devlin on the 360 Vessels installation, which will be displayed on three circular tables during the centre’s opening festival.
- University Chamber Choir will perform Muhly’s choral piece inspired by 17th‑century theologian Thomas Traherne as participants shape clay.
- Ethan Mollick’s “centaur” concept, describing human‑AI collaboration, was highlighted alongside references to the Turing test, Asimov’s Three Laws, the Compost computer, Borges’s The Aleph and a Dalai Lama AI discussion.
- A potter leading the workshop warned that the AI dialogue is a luxury, noting that people from developing‑world contexts are rarely consulted on AI’s impact.
Why it matters: The summit gives technologists, artists, and spiritual leaders a tactile forum to shape AI ethics, potentially informing the newly‑opened Institute for Ethics in AI and the public‑facing spaces of the Schwarzman Centre, while a potter’s reminder spotlights the exclusion of Global‑South voices from such debates.
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