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The latest links… “A.I. [learns] through statistical distribution the best word to use, the distribution of the reasonable words that could come next. I think moral decision-making can be done like that as well” — an interview with computer scientist (and MacArthur “genius” grant winner) Yejin Choi (Washington) on morality and artificial intelligence. “Some researchers say it does not make sense to frame something that is a normal biological process as disease. Further complicating things… is that there is no agreed-upon point at which a person becomes old” — Is old age a disease? Is a “yes” answer “ageist”? Or is the view that ageing is acceptable ageist?
New links for the Heap… The Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board has proposed a plaque to commemorate Philippa Foot and the house where she lived from 1972 to 2010 — a decision will be made on the proposal in mid-January New Work In Philosophy: The YouTube Channel — videos about recent philosophy Lecture notes—pretty much a textbook—for a course entitled “Belief, Desire, and Rational Choice” — from Wolfgang Schwarz (Edinburgh) One philosophy professor’s experience with a student who cheated by having ChatGPT write their essay — “proving the paper was concocted by ChatGPT was nearly impossible,” said Darren Hick (Furman) A Medievalist notices that an academic extensively plagiarized his blog in her book, and contacts her to object.
The latest additions to the heap… “I have a no-laptop, no phone policy in all my classes, and have yet to hear good reasons to give that up. Maybe you can give me some” — Harry Brighouse (Wisconsin) explains “How does the death spiral of one or more social media platforms impact philosophy?” — reflections from Helen de Cruz (SLU) “ChatGPT has no interest in you whatsoever. It isn’t curious about your goals or motivated to help you meet them. It lacks the good faith to tell you when your goals are misplaced” — today’s AI doesn’t care about you, and that limits its utility, argues Evan Selinger (RIT) “In one way or another, you are moved to imitate and share the things that speak to you, that seem, in one way or another, to be alive with beauty in a way that makes you feel alive” — Nick Riggle (San Diego) on beauty “The use of AI in science presents novel opportunities and challenges. One principle challenge has been how to determine when a given AI model is trustworthy” — Eamon Duede (Chicago) on why scientific trust in AI is different from its trust in experts, instruments, or methods “It’s not the pace of life I mind.
Recent additions to the Heap of Links… “While I’m still on the fence about eyes, I don’t think legs, strictly speaking, exist” — the question of whether there are more eyes or legs in the world “has profound implications for our understanding of certain fundamental matters at the heart of our ongoing debates about scientific realism,” says Justin E.H.
The heap grows… “By making nature the arbiter of our way of life, the Cynics ushered in a moral revolution… But critical theorists today… are understandably suspicious of appeals to nature’s moral authority” — “The Cynics would applaud their criticism, but they’d also warn them not to throw out the baby with the bathwater” “We may sometimes want our AI assistants, just like humans, to temper their truthfulness: to protect privacy, to avoid insulting others, or to keep someone safe, among innumerable other hard-to-articulate situations” — on the complexity of aligning artificial intelligences with human values “Intellectual history is not so much an enriching source of data and instruction as a prerequisite to know what I am talking about” — “everyone needs something that is, for them, playing the role of grounding one’s modal reasoning,” says Liam Kofi Bright (LSE) “Tellingly, no-one announcing the discovery of the new Hegel manuscripts seems excited that they’re going to make us realise something we didn’t know before about art” — Tom Whyman on whether more Hegel is good news “A one-size-fits-all approach to sex [comes] a