AI and the Dream: Technology in the Service of Humanity

In late 1967, as part of the Massey Lectures, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed millions of Canadians in five speeches on public radio. He spoke about the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement, but also reflected on the social challenges of technological progress.

In the Massey Lectures, Martin Luther King Jr. addressed the dangers of technology outrunning morality. (Credit: CBC)

“Gargantuan industry and government, woven into an intricate computerized mechanism, leave the person outside,” he said. “The sense of participation is lost, the feeling that ordinary individuals influence important decisions vanishes, and man becomes separated and diminished.”

At the time, computers still occupied entire rooms, tended by specialists and fed stacks of punch cards. The Pentagon had only just begun funding early networking experiments that would eventually yield ARPANET, the precursor to today’s internet.

And yet, as faculty discussed at AI and the Dream: Technology in Service of Humanity, part of Penn’s annual MLK Symposium, King anticipated many of the ethical questions raised by AI systems.

The event, held online, was co-sponsored by Penn Engineering, the School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2) and the African-American Resource Center (AARC).

“Dr. King warned us that our technological means can outpace our moral ends,” said Valerie Dorsey-Allen, Director of the AARC. “As AI rapidly reshapes education, work, health care and civic life, we’re being asked some very real questions: Who is the technology serving? Who is being left out? And who gets to decide?”

When Scientific Power Outruns Moral Power

By now, the potential downsides of AI systems are well known: they can replicate biases in their training data, generate convincing misinformation at scale and potentially destabilize the labor market by automating a wide range of intellectual tasks.

“Even when AI is used with good intentions, the systems themselves can cause harm because of what’s baked into them from the very start,” said Chris Callison-Burch, Professor in Computer and Information Science (CIS). “AI is learning from internet data, which reflects us, our society and our history.”

As other panelists noted, the issue is not just the data on which AI systems train, but who gets to build them. “Communities have to shape what’s getting built and how it’s governed,” added Desmond Upton Patton, Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor with joint appointments in SP2 and the Annenberg School for Communication, where he is the Waldo E. Johnson Jr. Professor. “Harm has to be addressed from the start, not just after deployment.”

Toward the Beloved Community

Still, as the panelists discussed, AI also offers opportunities to advance social progress. “Dr. King spoke of the ‘Beloved Community’ as a society rooted in justice and participation and mutual responsibility,” said Clayton Colmon, Director of Curriculum Design for Online Learning within the School of Arts & Sciences, who moderated the event.

That concept, Colmon suggested, invites a deeper question: What does authentic connection look like in an age when so much of human interaction is mediated by screens and algorithms?

For the panelists, the answer lies not in rejecting AI outright, but in reimagining its design and governance. “AI can move us toward beloved community when it strengthens care and deepens understanding,” said Patton, gesturing toward the ways in which automation can help social networks, chatbots and other AI-infused technologies identify at-risk users.

A Call to Action

In the Massey Lectures, King distinguished between technological progress and moral progress. “Nothing in our glittering technology can raise man to new heights,” he said. “In the absence of moral purpose, man himself becomes smaller as the works of man become bigger.”

The panelists agreed, concluding that the effects of AI will be largely shaped by the people who use it. “Our participation matters,” said Callison-Burch, who advises the Claude Builder Club, a community that welcomes Penn affiliates to experiment with AI. “The more people we can have who engage with AI and better understand it, the better decisions we can make as a society.”