Christopher Watkin

YouTube video by Calvin Theological Seminary Christopher Watkin and AI | Stob Lecture 2025

Video of my Stob lecture at @calvinseminary last week:

"The Human Remains: Fragility and Fulfilment in the Age of Artificial Intelligence"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM1oEhA8ou8

Biblical Critical Theory is featured in Amazon’s Black Friday sale this year.
amzn.to/4oUrtSY
It is currently 55% off but pricing may fluctuate during the sale, which ends 12/2.

Whether you're an AI boomer, doomer or scoffer, we need to work out the right questions to ask about genAI while it's still in its current horseless carriage phase.
Last week I joined a team of AI industry experts, researchers and entrepreneurs in Seoul to try and figure it out.
aiandfaith.org

Simone de Beauvoir and the “Adventurer”—Navigating the Return to the Common Good, with Mary Townsend Spotify video

Social Contract Research Network
🚨New Seminar🚨

Dr Mary Townsend
"Simone de Beauvoir and the 'Adventurer'—Navigating the Return to the Common Good"

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/18MU...
YouTube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT6H...

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: SCRN seminar: Mary Townsend, Simone de Beauvoir and the “Adventurer”—Navigating the Return to the Common Good. After registering, you will receive a confirm... If return to a more robust social contract has become necessary, what do we do with the individuals who willfully step outside of it? In her Ethics of Ambiguity, Simone de Beauvoir describes five para...

Social Contract Research Network Zoom seminar Tomorrow...

Mary Townsend, "Simone de Beauvoir and the 'Adventurer'—Navigating the Return to the Common Good"

Tu 4 Nov., 8pm Melbourne time. London: 10am; NYC: 5am.

Register here for the Zoom meeting: monash.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Yesterday I had the joy of hearing graphic novelist Clément Baloup speak about his remarkable work at the Monash European Languages Annual Lecture.
Huge thanks to Dr Charlotte Mackay for organising , Dr Tess Do for coordinating, and sponsors @monashuniversity.bsky.social & @unimelb.bsky.social !

In April 2026, my book "The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity" will be launched at a symposium in Sydney, with Sandra Leonie Field, Peter Harrison and Jessica Whyte speaking (thank you all!).
In-person and online attendance.
Rego page: events.nd.edu.au/state-of-nat...

Next week I’ll be in Seoul for the World Evangelical Alliance General Assembly, speaking on AI, Ethics & Trust: algorithmic justice, imago Dei, vocation & creation care, and accountability. If you’re there, let’s connect. #WEAGA2025 #AI #Theology
#WEAGA2025

Stob Lecture Series at Calvin Theological Seminary with Christopher Watkin: Tue, Nov 18 2025, 6 - 7:30pm Dr. Christopher Watkin is this year's presenter at the Stob Lecture Series at Calvin Theological Seminary. His talk "The Human Remains: Fragility and Fulfilment in the Age of Artificial Intelligence" ...

If you're in or around Grand Rapids, MI on November 18th and fancy thinking about how Artificial Ingelligence very helpfully brings into focus what it means to be human, I'd love to see you at this event:

calvin.edu/events/stob-...

YouTube video by Social Contract Research Network Sophia Rosenfeld, Thinking About the Age of Choice

New Social Contract Research Network seminar
Sophia Rosenfeld
"Thinking About the Age of Choice"

Podcast:
open.spotify.com/episode/2gCZ...

YouTube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd15...

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: SCRN seminar: Sophia Rosenfeld, Thinking about the Age of Choice. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting. Contracts always have a complex relationship to choice. On the one hand, partners to a legitimate contract have to agree to its terms voluntarily. On the other, the contract binds the parties once i...

Social Contract Research Network Zoom seminar🚨Monday/Tuesday🚨

Sophia Rosenfeld (University of Pennsylvania)

"Thinking about the Age of Choice"

Tu 30 Sep. 11am Melbourne
Mon 29 Sep. 6pm LA, 9pm NYC

Info and free registration:
monash.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

YouTube video by Social Contract Research Network Timothy Jackson, Diverse relations to alterity: from relational physics to the transindividual

New Social Contract Research Network seminar
Timothy Jackson
"Diverse relations to alterity: from relational physics to the transindividual"

Podcast:
creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...

YouTube:
youtube.com/watch?v=2gwsxX1KxqI

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: SCRN seminar: Timothy Jackson, Diverse relations to alterity: collective individuation and subject groups in Simondon, Guattari, and chemical ecology. After... If the individual is an ephemeral phase in being and the subject is always in relation with something more than “its self”, then who or what pre-exists “a social contract” and is capable of entering i...

SCRN Zoom seminar🚨tomorrow🚨

Timothy Jackson (Melbourne Uni)

"Diverse relations to alterity: collective individuation and subject groups in Simondon, Guattari, and chemical ecology"

16 Sep. 9am Melbourne.
15 Sep. 4pm LA, 7pm NYC.

Rego: monash.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
@aussoccontiphil.bsky.social

Children’s Periodicals and the Common Good: The Charitable Child, with Kristine Moruzi Spotify video

New New SCRN seminar:

Kristine Moruzi on children’s periodicals & the common good.

🎧Podcast version: open.spotify.com/episode/6WG4...
🎥Watch now on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYem...

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: SCRN seminar: Kristine Moruzi, Children’s Periodicals and the Common Good: The Charitable Child. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email ab... This paper explores how children’s magazines encouraged children to help other children, defining a philanthropic role for young people that is reinforced through the press. It uses children’s print c...

⏰Last-minute reminder:
8pm Monday AEST (6am New York, 11am London)
Social Contract Research Network Zoom seminar
Kristine Moruzi
"Children’s Periodicals and the Common Good: The Charitable Child"
Register here: monash.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Jason Ramasami from @crosslands has made this lovely animation inspired by the Babel chapter of my book Biblical Critical Theory.
It dramatises the "Babelian quest" of striving to make a name for ourselves, and the libereating peace of receiving a name from a divine lover.

YouTube video by Christopher Watkin What makes us human in the age of AI? A philosophical deep dive

New video: In the age of AI, what makes us human?

AI copies our wit, memory, even empathy. But is that all we are? What makes us human when machines mirror our “borrowed qualities”?

Fearuting: Pascal Descartes Montaigne Hobbes Adendt Heidegger Augustine Kafka
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_OIsLN-iVE

The telos of scholarly labor, namely truth told in charity, requires institutional forms that make virtue easier, not harder

"AI, proofing, and the meaning of what we do", by Lisa Herzog
crookedtimber.org/2025/08/19/a...

YouTube video by Christopher Watkin Should We Care About AI Welfare?

New video:
Should We Care About AI Welfare? 🤖💔
From medieval pig trials to Anthropic’s “model welfare” via Hobbes, Foucault, Augustine and Ricoeur.
An exploration of AI, ethics, imagination & love.
🎥 www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdJU...

Infinite Efficiency and Human Value w/ Dr. Christopher Watkin, ARC Future Fellow & Associate Professor @ Monash University Podcast Episode · Artificial Insights: How To Do AI Right · 08/15/2025 · 49m

"Infinite Efficiency and Human Value"
•we're living through AI's "horseless carriage" moment
•mutuality and reciprocity in relating to AI
•why AI is simulacral, and how that shapes how we relate to it
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i...
open.spotify.com/episode/5EZD...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN3Y...

The Stob Lecture Series: A Continuing Legacy of Thought Leadership The Official Magazine of the Christian Reformed Church

In November I'll be giving the Stob lecture at Calvin University, Grand Rapids, MI.

My provisional title: "The Human Remains: Fragility and Fulfilment in the Age of Artificial Intelligence".

Come along and say hello on Nov 18 if you're in the area! www.thebanner.org/our-shared-m...

YouTube video by Christopher Watkin The AI Mirror: What Does Your Chat History Say About You? A Philosophical Deep Dive and DIY Audit

If your AI could analyse your chats, what would it reveal about you? 🤖
In this video I take a philosophical look at the question of how we relate to AI, and give you a DIY AI Relational Audit to unearth hidden patterns in how you interact with your LLM.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GN62...

"I also don’t think you should work for the devil!" Duly noted, thanks ;)
And sincere thanks for those reflections, Andrew!

Thanks, Andrew! Yes, Sherry Turkle is strong on AI as companionship, especially for the elderly.
Let's play devil's advocate: what's wrong with ai companionship? How is it different to pet companionship or even being very fond of a beloved object/item? Or falling in love with our fantasy of someone?

The Artificial Insights Podcast: How AI is Changing the Future of Work & Business AI is a transformative technology that will define our generation. Learn how AI is changing the future of work and business straight from leaders and founder...

Next week I'll be talking on the Artificial Insights podcast, on the ethics of AI.
What points do you think I should make?
What is the AI ethics debate missing?
What are the currently under-discussed or underappreciated aspects of AI ethics?
manary.haus/podcast/

YouTube video by Christopher Watkin Conversation Practice Based On Any Article: Free GPTs for French, German, Spanish & Italian

AI is no panacea in language learning, but for self-paced, personalised speaking practice, it can be super-useful.
I’ve built 4 free GPTs for French, German, Spanish & Italian: upload any article/novel, have a conversation, get personalised language + content feedback
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv9f...

"AI is forcing us to ask fundamental questions about the meaning and purpose of work. What’s the point of a college degree? ... I welcome these questions. We should have been asking them a long time ago, and now AI is forcing them on us all at once. Better late than never."

YouTube video by Christopher Watkin Jean Luc Nancy and the Deconstruction of Christianity: A conversation with Ashok Collins

In this new video I interview Dr Ashok Collins about his forthcoming monograph "Jean-Luc Nancy and the Deconstruction of Christianity" in the Edinburgh University Press @edinburghup.bsky.social 'Crosscurrents' series.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYwB...

Armitage Lecture 2025 The Armitage Lecture series was established in 2005 aiming to encourage thinking on matters to do with Anglican schooling.

In June I had the honour of delivering the annual Isaac Armitage Lecture at the Shore School, Sydney: "Custodians of the Common Good: Christian Education in a Post-Christian World"
The video is now available: www.shore.nsw.edu.au/about/news/t...

The publication process for "The State of Nature and the Shaping of Modernity" grinds on.
Here is the proof (in both senses).