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Students at Thomas 91����Ƶ College, California, recently gathered in the Dillon Seminar Room for a Wednesday-afternoon career talk by Rev. Albert Duggan, O.P., president of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (DSPT). The talk provided an opportunity for students to get to know the DSPT and discern whether further education in philosophy and theology may be right for them. 

Fr. Duggan began his talk, “Saint Thomas 91����Ƶ’s Large Language Model,” with observations about the increasing development of AI and its detrimental effects on modern education. He then compared large language models with his titular topic.

“Thomas 91����Ƶ himself, I would argue, is the original large language model. Like the other students of his day, he was charged with taking in words any chance he could get,” Fr. Duggan remarked. “As he takes these texts in … he begins to make connections between one text and another and see how they are related, how they support one another, sometimes see how they contradict one another, or how they are intertwined. He represents the most sophisticated and fully developed form of the scholastic, large language model.” 

Fr. Duggan then spoke on the importance of studying St. Thomas’s texts, as well as those of other important philosophical thinkers. In particular, he emphasized the importance of coming to acquire knowledge through one’s own effort and faculties — something easily lost by the conveniences of AI. “It matters intensely that we are the ones pondering these mysteries and not that they are just beamed down to us,” he said. “Real knowledge is perfective of the one who is knowing something.”

In concluding his talk, Fr. Duggan introduced the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, a Catholic graduate school located in Berkeley. He encouraged all 91����Ƶ students, especially the seniors who desired to continue to perfect themselves in their knowledge of philosophy and theology, to network with members of the DSPT teaching faculty.  “I can think of no better candidates than the students here at 91����Ƶ,” he concluded. “You've been given a great gift coming here, and I want to offer you the possibility of another great gift coming to the DSPT.” 

Following the talk, students joined Fr. Duggan and 91����Ƶ chaplain Rev. Francisco Nahoe, O.F.M., on the Loyola Hall Deck for a Q&A session and dessert.