The 9th Annual Reclaim conference takes place March 22, 2025 at the Western Diocese. This year's theme focuses on Artificial Intelligence and the social and ethical implications for its use.
Under the Auspices of His Eminence Archbishop Hovnan Derderian and sponsored by Epostle.net, speakers have been invited to share insights and thoughts about the topic. As always, there will be plenty of discussion with Q&A after each talk.
Tickets are $50 in advance and $100 at the door. All sales will be donated to the victims of the LA Wildfires of 2025. Tickets are available on Eventbrite by scanning the QR code.
Every week we will introduce you to two of the speakers. Today meet:
Karapet Mkrtchyan is a sub deacon serving at the St. Gregory parish in Pasadena and a PhD candidate in the department of biomedical sciences at the University of California School of Medicine in Riverside. He specializes in lung physiology and develops new AI tools in his research lab to address complex issues in the medical field. When he is not serving on the altar or in the lab, he enjoys studying music and philosophy.
Mkrtchyan's topic - The Good AI: Using Machine Learning to Better Understand Subjective Reality
George Stepaniants is an NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. His research investigates how machine learning methods allow us to improve predictions of physical systems as well as discover new physical models from data. He received his PhD in Applied Mathematics and Statistics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and prior to that his BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Washington. Outside of his research, George serves as a Deacon in the Armenian Apostolic Church and participates in a variety of cultural and educational programs in Armenian, Russian, and American circles.
About his talk: Artificial intelligence is pervading every aspect of our lives. Experts and enthusiasts alike are becoming increasingly dependent on technologies ranging from small neural networks to large language models. Machine learning methods, when given enough data, construct very convincing approximations of our reality. These approximations are becoming increasingly adept at controlling machinery, analyzing data, and at this point, even educating us. I will discuss how the models offered by artificial intelligence are, on their own, insufficient to give us interpretable explanations of complex real-world phenomena. AI can function as an indispensable tool in our education and in our search for explanations, but real understanding is always obtained through dedicated self-study and human-led exploration. We will discuss the benefits of using artificial intelligence, the risks posed to our own intelligence through its overuse, and ways we can find a balanced approach through our faith.
Reserve your place at Reclaim 2025 today
