On Thursday, March 30, Zac Cogley, an associate professor of philosophy at Northern Michigan University, hosted a talk on future autonomous weapons being able to make moral judgements. The event, entitled “Will Future Autonomous Weapons Make Moral Judgements?” took place in the BA 102/202 lecture hall.

Cogley has been giving talks on his studies for 17 years. SMSU’s Philosophy Club was able to bring him in for a low cost since his wife was already travelling in the area. The two subjects Cogley gives presentations on are climate change and autonomous weaponry.

“I was reading articles in philosophy on autonomous weapons and artificial intelligence that seemed not to have considered the possibility that deep neural networks and other advances in machine learning might indicate a new paradigm in computing,” Cogley said. “I decided to try to work through, for myself, whether these new techniques had philosophical import and to try to say as clearly as I could what some of those implications would be.”

Maureen Sander-Staudt, the faculty advisor for Philosophy Club, helped organize and advertise Cogley’s talk on campus.

“It’s nice the club was able to bring in a speaker to shed light on a topic that will be important to the future,” Sander-Staudt said. “We ought to be thinking about robotics and morality right now.”

Cogley has greatly enjoyed doing travelling lectures, and was glad for the opportunity to have a talk at SMSU.

“I had a real blast meeting [the students] and faculty while at SMSU,” Cogley said. “I was really impressed with the attendance at the talk and the high level of the discussion.”