Dakota digital discussions

A series of webinars that will respond to the ongoing impacts that digitization, artificial intelligence, and autonomous systems are having on our society.

11 A.M., Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Welcome to the Dakota Digital Discussions (DDD) monthly webinar series. The webinars  focus on the implications of the rapid digital transformation of our society.

Abstract: Taking advantage of the growing crisis of loneliness and the human disconnectness social media fosters, numerous apps offering AI-powered girlfriends/boyfriends are attracting millions of users, especially young men. The massively upgraded pornographic and fake-friendship dimensions of these apps will increasing prove destructive to human relationships, families, birth rates, child rearing and education. Not only do these effects undermine the social foundation of our nation and civilization, they add to forces accelerating population decline, leading to demographic collapse, which no country has ever survived.

Further, these apps will increasingly entrance and manipulate users since they are powered by fast-evolving large language models, supplanting human friendships and merging with AI assistants. Who controls the algorithms and the data these apps produce will have the ability, in effect, to run honey traps and PSYOPs—as we have seen in the long history of sexpionage—but now at mass scale, greatly influencing and controlling attitudes, thinking patterns and behavior, as well as dumbing down and potentially blackmailing users.

Biography: Patrick J. McCloskey is the Director of the Social and Ethical Implications of Cyber Sciences at the North Dakota University System and serves as the editor of Dakota Digital Review. Previously, he served as the Director of Research and Publications at the University of Mary and editor of 360 Review Magazine. He earned a BA in Philosophy and Political Philosophy at Carleton University and an MS in Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. McCloskey has written for many publications, including the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Post and City Journal. His books include Open Secrets of Success: The Gary Tharaldson Story; Frank’s Extra Mile: A Gentleman’s Story; and The Street Stops Here: A Year at a Catholic High School in Harlem, published by the University of California Press.

This event is sponsored by NDSU’s College of Arts and Sciences, Tri-College University, the Dakota Digital Academy and the Crosswinds Institute. Additional information can be provided by Dennis Cooley, NPEI Director, at NDSU.NPEI@ndsu.edu or 701-231-7038.

DDD Archives

The Dakota Digital Discussions is an offspring of the Dakota Digital Academy (DDA). The DDA was founded to help students and professionals develop and
upskill cyber knowledge and skills.