"Ken Felder is mind-bending. After his "Are You a Robot?" lecture last fall all my friends talked about it for weeks." --Elan Dassani, UNC-CH In reference to Felder's talk Einstein, Bill Gates, and the Buddha... "Kenny's talk was really wonderful. He was funny, kept our attention, but more than anything, he seemed to reach people by getting on their level. He was ordinary and real—he was one of us which is why we were able to listen to him. I left feeling like I had a place to start from, that I have some things to actually do." --Sean Ryan, NC State "After the talk I simply could not put my mind on the homework I had wanted to do. I just stayed up late, watched the stars, and tried desperately to process everything that the lecture stirred up in me. This was the kind of lecture I spent four years trying to find." --Mandy Schleifer, UNC-CH

Kenny Felder spent years working on artificial intelligence at Microsoft, while running a spiritual group from his home. Now he challenges you to answer the question—are you anything more than a walking, talking artificial intelligence algorithm? How do you know?

"When you work on the cutting edge of software research—not just optimizing loops, but really trying to make algorithms that think and a respond like a human—you inevitably wind up wondering about human thought itself," Felder explains. "Can language be reduced to an algorithm? How about creativity? Love? Does free will figure into this? What about God? Everyone I've talked to, in every walk of life, has something interesting to say on the subject."

So, in this one-man-vs.-the-audience debate, Felder invites you to come say what you think about the subject. Then he challenges your ideas, using everything from ancient Buddhist writings to Star Trek. "Every time I've done this lecture, it's come out different, because the audience really runs it," Felder observes. "Once they figure out that what we're really talking about isn't computers, but the nature of people, we're off and running.

"And," Felder adds, "When you pursue this issue rigorously enough, the questions inevitably point back to the spiritual. But you can't take my word for that—you have to go down the road yourself."

Invite Kenny Felder to speak at your organization