What can animals, robots, and gods teach us about what it means to be human? In this episode, anthropologist Webb Keane investigates how our morality entwines with the non-human world.
Since the dawn of humanity, our sense of ourselves has been shaped by things that seem human – or nearly human – but are not. From sacrificial animals to household pets, ancient gods to future technologies like robots and AI, the human world was, is and will continue to be profoundly influenced by its relationship with intelligences other than our own. What moral responsibility do we have toward the prey that we hunt and the machines that clean our homes? Why did medieval Europeans put pigs and cats on trial, and what can the Delphic Oracle tell us about ChatGPT? Anthropologist Webb Keane takes us beyond the boundaries of the human world in this episode to answer these questions and more.
