If you haven’t already, please read Part 1 of “Why You Should Care That Artificial Intelligence Can Lie” before continuing, because I’m picking up in this post where I left off in the last one. Again, the concern here is whether or not robots (AI systems) can lie. As I demonstrated in Part 1, there…
Read MoreMany people, myself included, are willing to affirm the near-future possibility of artificial general intelligence (AGI), or machines capable of performing all of the cognitive functions normally associated with human minds. The most important of these capabilities, not yet achieved by our extant “narrow” AI, is consciousness (sometimes, problematically, called “self-awareness”): an imprecise, indefinite, and…
Read MoreICYMI, I posted the first iteration of “What To Assign If You Want To Teach The Future” last year at the conclusion of my advanced seminar called “Technology and Human Values.” I’m now teaching that course every semester and, because both emerging technology and the scholarship about it is being produced at a mind-boggling pace,…
Read MoreI recently finished reading the excellent new book by Jodi Dean (Political Science, Hobart and William Smith College) entitled Comrade: An Essay on Belonging. There are many reasons to recommend Dean’s all-too-brief, but brilliantly executed, text: its surgeon-like evisceration of the ideological cult of “allyship,” its elaboration of the truly liberatory promise of the “Communist Horizon” (which Dean…
Read MoreThere has been a push recently to encourage more “forward facing” philosophy, a long overdue and welcome development in our profession. However, for better or worse, what gets called “public philosophy”– the aim of this push– remains pretty vaguely defined. On the one hand, some argue that public philosophy should have real-world applications, though their…
Read MoreFor the last several years, I’ve been trying to incorporate new assignments and activities that encourage students to think of the work they do in my courses as having real impact on their lives outside of the classroom. I’m trying to work against their tendency to sit through a course as if they were a…
Read MoreSince I posted my list of tech book recommendations a few weeks ago, several people have asked me to explain why I describe myself as a “techno-optimist.” I get this question a lot, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to give a quick account (and defense) of my position. But, first, a few preliminary remarks about…
Read MoreWe’re nearing the end of the semester and I’m wrapping up two of the most exciting and intellectually invigorating courses I’ve taught in a long time. One of them was an upper-division undergraduate course entitled “Technology and Human Values” (syllabus here) The other was an intro-level undergrad Ethics course called “Contemporary Moral Issues” (syllabus here),…
Read MoreRecently, I took part in an excellent interdisciplinary symposium (hosted by Ted George and Kristi Sweet of the Texas A&M Philosophy Department) focused on “Hermeneutics, the Humanities, and the Future of Interpretation.” All of the presentations were great, but the one that has stuck in my craw, and which I suspect I will not be able to pry loose for quite some…
Read MoreThis is another installment in my series of reviews of Black Mirror. These posts DO include spoilers. Stop reading now if you don’t want to know! [Note from Dr. J: What follows is Part 2 of a two-part guest post from Jeffrey Gower. You can read Part One here.] Near the end of “White Bear,” as Victoria sits bound to a…
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