From 12 till 16 May 2025, CETE-P hosted David J. Gunkel, Presidential Teaching Professor at Northern Illinois University. Prof. Gunkel is philosopher who has authored a number of acclaimed books about the philosophical questions of machine ethics, remix culture and cyber culture.
 
On 14 May David J. Gunkel and CETEP’s ERA Chair holder Mark Coeckelbergh attended the global launch of Communicative AI: A Critical Introduction to Large Language Models (Polity 2025), a book that the they authored together. The book launch took place at the Czech Academy of Sciences at Národní 3, Prague. Gunkel and Coeckelbergh were introduced to the general public by CETE-P’s Tomáš Hříbek. The two authors then took turns in presenting the seven chapters of the book. Its distinguishing feature is that it draws on the insights of the Continental thinkers such as Barthes, Derrida, Flusser and Heidegger to illuminate the nature of LLMS.

The book launch was preceded by an internal seminar at the Institute of Philosophy CAS at which Gunkel and Coeckelbergh offered a more in-depth survey of two chapters from their new book, on the prospects of authorship and the future of writing, respectively. Afterwards, Gunkel and Coeckelbergh answered questions and criticisms from the CETE-P members and invited experts (both philosophers and computer scientists), who had had access to the requisite texts prior to the book’s publication.
In addition to participating in the book launch and the CETE-P seminar, Prof. Gunkel also met with some of CETE-P’s postdoctoral researchers.

The event was co-organized by CETE-P in co-operation with Karel Čapek Center for Values in Science and Technology (CEVAST) and sponsored by a Strategie AV 21 grant provided by the Czech Academy of Sciences.

More about David J.Gunkel and his work in this profile.

Photos: Romana Kovacs