Artificial intelligence and its effects on the Christian faith will be the topic of the Fourth Annual Norman Carlson Faith and Science Symposium.

The Lutheran Campus Ministry of Ames is sponsoring the free-of-charge symposium, which will take place in the Pioneer Room of the Memorial Union from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday.

The Faith and Science Symposium is an annual event named in honor of Norman Carlson, metallurgist scientist at ISU and the Ames Laboratory who also worked on the Manhattan Project during the 1940s.

“Norman was a friend of Lutheran Campus Ministry and was very interested in the relationship between faith and science,” said Karl Koch, pastor at University Lutheran Congregation.

The keynote speaker for the day will be Anne Foerst, who holds positions at both Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Divinity School. Foerst’s speech, which will kick off the symposium at 1 p.m., will address reconciling artificial intelligence and the Christian faith.

Koch said Foerst was chosen because of her experience in the field, which includes working on a team which has designed a humanoid robot that displays cognitive human intelligence.

After Foerst’s speech, members of the symposium will break into small groups and answer a set of questions prepared by University Lutheran pertaining to the ethics of robotics and artificial intelligence.

Koch listed some of the small group questions as follows: What does it mean to be human? What human qualities can we duplicate? What does “created in the image of God” mean? How will artificial intelligence affect our everyday lives?

“The overall goal of the discussion will be to reach a religious understanding of this new technology,” Koch said. “There are many ethical questions that come with the emergence of artificial intelligence.”

The small groups will break then to take part in a panel discussion with experts in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence.

The panel will include Dan Spencer, professor of religion at Drake University; Judy Vance, professor of mechanical engineering at ISU; Charles Wright and Julie Dickerson, both professors of electrical and computer engineering at ISU; and Foerst.

The moderator for the panel will be Jon Tollefson, an ISU professor of entomology and president of the foundation board at University Lutheran.

Past symposiums have dealt with issues such as genetic engineering and creationist ecology.

Those interested in the symposium should be in the Pioneer Room by 12:30 p.m. for registration.