Ebert Symposium 2025 focuses on Artificial Intelligence

02/12/2025

Ebert Symposium on AI

The 2025 Chaz and Roger Ebert Symposium, presented by the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies, will address "Artificial Intelligence Imagined and Realized." The Ebert Symposium’s mission this year is to bridge academic research with broader cultural conversations about the uses of artificial intelligence. Join us for this free two-day event on April 22-23, featuring a film screening, a keynote speaker, and two roundtable discussions.

Her film

Tuesday, April 22
7 p.m., Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum

Watch a screening of Spike Jonze’s award-winning film Her (2013). Jonze’s film follows the solitary life of Theodore Twombly as he begins to use the AI chat technology Samantha to come to terms with the break-up of his relationship. The film melds technology and the human condition through a quiet and moving journey of self-discovery.

 

Wednesday, April 23
9:30 a.m.-3 p.m., Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum

Bukatman
9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.
The Ebert Symposium keynote will be delivered by Dr. Scott Bukatman, Professor of Film and Media Studies at Stanford University. Prof. Bukatman will use science fiction literature, film, and comics to explore how AI helps reveal “the downsides of personality.”

Ji Duncan Kerr 
Grosser Markley

11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
A roundtable discussion at 11 a.m. on the intersection between science fiction and engineering. The conversation will cover the interplay within real-world AI technologies by concentrating on the portrayals of artificial intelligence in film and popular culture. This conversation will be held between Professors Heng Ji (Computer Science), Alison Duncan Kerr (Philosophy), Ben Grosser (New Media), and Robert Markley (English).

2-3 p.m.
Continuing the discussion from the morning, the second roundtable will feature guests from Roger Ebert’s Film Festival (to be announced). This panel will continue to bring together different disciplines and professions to further our knowledge of how these contrasting perspectives have come to understand AI usage in the world at large. (Location to be announced.)