Oppenheimer and Society

As Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer hits theaters, conversations around past Director J. Robert Oppenheimer’s legacy have taken on new relevance in the context of artificial intelligence, intellectual integrity, and interdisciplinarity. In recent months, the Institute community has gathered around these topics, with some highlights below:

J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Defense of Humanity

Director and Leon Levy Professor David Nirenberg writes for the Wall Street Journal about how, after helping invent the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer spent decades thinking about how to protect civilization from technological dangers, offering crucial lessons for the age of AI.

Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb

Kai Bird, author of American Prometheus, sat down with CBS correspondent David Martin at Rubenstein Commons to talk about J. Robert Oppenheimer ahead of the release of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer, Technology, and Humanity

In this conversation with David Nirenberg, Kai Bird explores Oppenheimer’s complex legacy. The discussion touches on Oppenheimer’s attempts to create an interdisciplinary space at IAS through the recruitment of Faculty from diverse fields, and the alignment between technology and humanity.

Oppenheimer Exhibit

The Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center is home to a number of primary source documents that provide a closer look at Oppenheimer’s career, both during and after the Manhattan Project, including a New York Times article from 1948 in which Oppenheimer becomes the face of the “A-Bomb.”

Roundtable: Reimagining the Legacy of Oppenheimer
Caitlin Rizzo (Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center, IAS) and Emma Moore (Mathematics – Natural Sciences Library, IAS) were joined by science communication experts George Dyson, Graham Farmelo, Siobhan Roberts, and Alex Wellerstein to examine how a legend like Oppenheimer’s is shaped, as well as his advocacy for open access to knowledge and how he thought deeply about how to convey scientific knowledge to the public at large.