Location: Stiteler Hall Room 251, 3700 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19104
This event is a forum that will allow faculty, students, and staff to explore the potential for contemplative practices to maximize benefits and minimize harms associated with using AI in higher education settings. Participants are invited to discuss how integrating contemplative practices into higher education can help support learning as AI becomes increasingly integrated into the lives of students and faculty. How does AI use help and harm learning and how can the practice of mindfulness boost benefit and mitigate harm? Meditation trains people to cultivate "meta-awareness," a skill that is likely to become increasingly important as some thinking tasks are shifted to AI assistants. It can also strengthen human qualities like empathy, compassion, morality, as well as support ethical behavior. Mindfulness cultivates a kind of embodied wisdom unique to humans that technological advances are unlikely to replicate in the foreseeable future.
We will interrogate the ways that mindfulness could help us avoid some of the possible pitfalls of AI use (e.g., “de-skilling,” “brain rot”) while safeguarding important human qualities like emotional intelligence, social engagement, and relationship-building as we outsource some cognitive tasks to AI. Can mindfulness strengthen critical thinking, creativity, and innovation? How do contemplative practices allow us to balance thinking with awareness? How can the cultivation of awareness and presence help us to apply and develop AI in beneficial ways? Participants will have the opportunity to experience short mindfulness practices.
Panelists
- Elizabeth Mackenzie, Adjunct Associate Professor, Penn GSE – Facilitator
- Deven Patel, Associate Professor, Penn Arts & Sciences – Commentator
- Jill Katz, Director of Communication, SNF Paideia Program – Commentator
This program is part of AI Month at Penn. Throughout the month of April, Penn GSE invites educators, students, and leaders to engage in a collective exploration of artificial intelligence in education. Rather than focusing on the technology in isolation, AI Month at Penn is dedicated to understanding how these tools intersect with human learning, equity, and the daily realities of our schools.
AI Month at Penn
AI Month at Penn is a month-long, University-wide initiative throughout April 2026 that will focus on human-centered AI. The month's events will highlight research, dialogues and collaborations that put people at the center of technological innovation. Through panels, workshops, lectures and community events, the initiative highlights work across AI in health, science, education, business and public life.