#19 Webb Keane on Fieldwork in Indonesia, Anthropology’s Role in the Development of AI, and Exploring Meaning in Everyday Life

Webb Keane is the George Herbert Mead Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and a leading thinker on ethics, religion, and meaning in everyday life. His work explores how belief, morality, and material objects shape who we are and how modern ideas of sincerity, freedom, and responsibility came to be. Through fieldwork in Indonesia and wide‑ranging theoretical writing, he brings weighty philosophical questions to the level of everyday practice. His latest book ‘Animals, Robots, Gods: Adventures in the Moral Imagination’ explores non-human agency from animals to AI and automated beings.

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