Pepperdine University to Host the Sixth Annual Human-Centered AI Conference and the Inaugural Summit on Faith in AI

Pepperdine University will host the 6th annual Human-Centered AI Conference, as well as the inaugural Global Summit on Faith in AI this fall.

On September 25-26, leading AI practitioners, researchers, corporate executives, and global religious figures will converge in Malibu to explore how AI could positively affect the human condition. Throughout the two-day event, participants will glean new insights into the development of the world’s most transformative technology, while also learning how to morally and ethically wrestle with its significance.

“Pepperdine’s Human-Centered AI Conference is an exciting opportunity to hear how some of the world’s leading AI experts are trying to harness these new tools to better humanity,” says Fabien Scalzo an associate professor of computer science at Seaver College, the director of Pepperdine’s Keck Data Science Institute, and the chair of the conference. “This year, in accordance with the University’s Christian mission, we’re excited to broaden the conversation and investigate, together, how faith should influence our use of this powerful technology.”

As Scalzo mentioned, the Human-Centered AI conference will welcome a who’s who of AI thought leaders to Pepperdine’s campus. Academics like Judea Pearl (University of California, Los Angeles), Paul Thompson (University of Southern California), and Katie Bouman (California Institute of Technology) will be featured next to CEO’s like Leo Petrossian (Kandu Inc.), Matthew Johnson, and Josh Bloom (Valency)—to name just a few.

Additionally, the conference will host the likes of Rabbi Erez Sherman (Sinai Temple), Archbishop Thomas Paul Schirrmacher, His Eminence Metropolitan Gerasimos of San Francisco (Representing His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew), and many other significant faith leaders for the inaugural Global Summit on Faith in AI. Chaired by Johnnie Moore, Pepperdine’s vice chancellor and managing director of Middle East studies, this first of its kind event will deepen the University’s AI conversation by analyzing the technology from a multitude of religious viewpoints.

“You don’t have to be a religious Christian like me to appreciate religion as a kind of wisdom compounding across the centuries,” said Moore. “What we are witnessing now is something like a peace treaty between religion and science — because science has finally collided with the very questions that once belonged to the philosophy department, the questions of what a person is, what a mind is, and what we owe one another. Artificial intelligence forces those questions on all of us at once, and we’d be foolish to take them up without the people who’ve been thinking about them the whole time.”

Appearing as a panel alongside this list of industry experts and religious leaders  is a cohort of recent Pepperdine alumni working in the AI space. Sean Wu, the University's first Rhodes Scholar, Ulysse Saltiel, Katelin Goño, and Yuning Yang will all return to Malibu to share how they were equipped to be leaders in the professional marketplace of AI.

“We’re so excited to welcome our talented alumni back to campus,” said Scalzo. “They are the ones who will help shape the future of AI. Their wisdom, insight, and accomplishments all exemplify the impact Pepperdine students can go on to make in their vocational fields.”

Through insightful keynote lectures, an array of panel conversations, and time for community connection the 6^th annual Human-Centered AI Conference and Inaugural Global Summit in Faith and AI will allow all attendees the chance to learn more about one of the world’s most relevant topics.

Registration for the event is now open. Learn more about the Human-Centered AI Conference.