Join the Roger Ebert Center for Film Studies for the 2025 Chaz and Roger Ebert Symposium: “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.
The keynote, "Artificial Annoyance and Augmented Hilarity: The Disordered Personalities of AI Comedy," will be delivered at 9:30 a.m. by Dr. Scott Bukatman, professor of film and media studies at Stanford University. Professor Bukatman will use science fiction literature, film, and comics to explore how AI helps reveal “the downsides of personality.”
Following the keynote, we will host a roundtable discussion with University of Illinois faculty 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 moderated by Professor Mike Yao (Digital Media), director of the Institute of Communications Research, with panelists Professors Heng Ji (Computer Science), Alison Duncan Kerr (Philosophy), Ben Grosser (New Media), and Robert Markley (English).