(upbeat music) - The Natural History Museum of Utah's 2024 lecture series, The Science of Intelligence, is inspired by its current exhibition, Becoming Jane, the Evolution of Dr. Jane Goodall.

Our guest today, though, is director of the Museum, Dr. Jason Cryan, to tell us about the next lecture.

Hi, Dr. Cryan.

Thank you so much for being here.

- Thanks, Mary.

- A pleasure to have you.

- It's a pleasure to be here.

- Okay, so you're bringing in David Eagleman.

- We are, on April 2nd of next week.

- [Mary] And tell me his background, 'cause it's pretty fascinating.

- Right, so Dr. Eagleman's a Stanford neurobiologist, neuroscientist, and he's a bestselling author.

He's gonna do some really interesting commentary on artificial intelligence and what the implications are for humans, for us.

It's gonna be fascinating.

- It'll be great, 'cause especially like the impact on human creatives, like what's modern AI doing for them and?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Well, you know, whether we use it actively or maybe subconsciously, AI is all around us.

It's in our phones, it's in our computers.

It's a tool that's here to stay, and it's really changing things.

- Oh boy, is it ever.

I mean, it helps with everything from research to, well, coming up with titles.

I mean, it's really a powerful thing.

But there are some downsides I'm sure he'll discuss as well.

- It's, the implications are really fascinating, and it's gonna be beyond my conception to even think about all of the things that it could, could take place.

- Oh, yeah, so that's coming up, but then you're doing a panel as well, April 18th.

- Indeed.

The following week, April 18th, we'll have a panel discussion on artificial intelligence and the implications on society.

That's gonna be at the Salt Lake City Library at 7:00 PM.

- Great, and I know it's all part of that Jane Goodall exhibit, - Right.

- which that goes through.

- That goes through May 27th.

This is our current special exhibition at the museum.

And it really has inspired this lecture series.

And the idea is that, you know, Jane Goodall, through her studies of the chimpanzees and showing that their, the range of emotions, the range of maternal care, they changed the very definition of intelligence.

- Yeah, so it's great you're exploring all this, and thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

- It's wonderful.

Thank you.

- And if you'd like to know more about what's happening at the Natural History Museum of Utah, the lecture series, the Science of Intelligence with David Eagleman on April 2nd at 7:00 PM in Kingsbury Hall, or about the Jane Goodall exhibit going through the 27th or that AI panel coming up, just go to nhmu.utah.edu.

That's nhmu.utah.edu.

I'm Mary Dickson.

Thanks for watching "Contact."

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Hi, I'm Mary Dickson.

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