Elon Musk bought Twitter, in part according to Musk, because of “its potential to be the platform for free speech.” Within hours of the conclusion of the deal, use of the n-word on Twitter jumped nearly 500%, an obvious challenge to moderation rules and Twitter's new limits, if any, on speech. This piece from Philosophy Now (UK) traces "free speech" from John Stuart Mill's On Liberty to the challenges posed by social media, including hate speech and anonymous postings: philosophynow.org/issues/151/Mill_Free_Speech_and_Social_Media
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If one-third of a rat's brain is comprised of human brain cells, is it still a rat? (Or a ratman?) What if the majority of the rat's brain was comprised of human brain cells? What about the whole thing? Should a ratman have the same moral status as a plain rat? Who decides if ratmen should be created in the first place? These are no longer purely theoretical questions: researchers have successfully implanted human brain cells into the brains of baby rats. Over time, the human cells were integrated into the baby rats' brains and eventually comprised about one-third of total brain mass. This article from MIT Technology Review looks at some of the ethical questions arising from this line of experimentation: www.technologyreview.com/2022/10/14/1061611/rats-with-human-brain-cells
Art generated by artificial intelligence is all the rage. But art-generating AI is trained up on images scraped from the internet, usually without permission or attribution. This article from MIT Technology Review looks at the problems AI-generated art is posing for actual artists: www.technologyreview.com/2022/09/16/1059598/this-artist-is-dominating-ai-generated-art-and-hes-not-happy-about-it
Humans have a notoriously bad track record of trying to intervene "helpfully" in natural environments. Yet today, natural environments need more help than ever before *and* humans have more tools at their disposal to intervene than ever before, from CRISPR gene edits, to sophisticated reproductive technologies, to species relocations. What could go wrong? This article considers some of the ethical questions at the frontier of conservation biology: www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/opinion/conservation-ethics.html
If you could find out in advance that you were likely to develop a disease for which there is no cure, would you want to know? If this were a commercially available product, how should the information be contextualized for end users who may have little or no scientific background to interpret the results? Who is to blame if the technology gets the diagnosis wrong? These are just some of the questions emerging from advances in genetics and, more recently, artificial intelligence in identifying disease earlier than ever before.
In the case recently in the news, researchers have developed an AI-powered device that has a 90% accuracy rate in identifying Parkinson's disease based on listening to how a patient breathes while sleeping. Accuracy increased to 95% by analyzing breathing patterns for 12 nights. Early treatment is critical for preventing damage to the brain yet, at present, there are no blood tests or other reliable diagnostics to detect early Parkinson's. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/02/parkinsons-disease-ai-diagnosis/ The first half of this article looks at the work of 17th century Ethiopian philosopher Zera Yacob (also transliterated Zära Yaqob), whose work is largely unknown in English even though Yacob's work preceded, paralleled, and even went beyond that of more famous European Enlightenment-era thinkers. aeon.co/essays/yacob-and-amo-africas-precursors-to-locke-hume-and-kant
This article looks at the Swedish philosophy of lagom, the idea that just enough is just right:
"There comes a point when a thing becomes too much. ... Lagom translates as 'just the right amount.' It means knowing when enough is enough, and trying to find balance and moderation rather than constantly grasping for more. Lagom is that feeling of contentment we all get when we have all that we need to make us comfortable. ... There are two separate strands to lagom. The first is a kind of social awareness that recognizes that what we do affects other people. In this, we might see lagom more as a kind of 'fair use' policy. If you take three cookies from the plate, two other people aren’t going to get one. If you hoard and grab everything you can, elbowing and cursing your way to the front of the line, then at best, that makes you a bit of an ass. At worst, it leaves others in ruin.The second strand, however, is a mental shift that finds contentment in satisfaction. Many of us have internalized the ideas that bigger means better, that a bank balance means status, and that excess means happiness. ... [Lagom is] not simply learning to 'enjoy the simple things,' but also appreciating that sometimes less really is more. Lagom is knowing that enjoying the now of what you have does not mean you need to add more of it. After all, talking to a friend over a coffee is nice. But meeting with ten friends after ten coffees does not make things better." bigthink.com/thinking/swedish-philosophy-lagom-just-enough Just in time for back to school, MIT Technology Review's podcast "In Machines We Trust" looks at how AI is being used to monitor students (and perhaps parents when they click on their child's homework) outside the classroom, with interesting questions about informed consent, bias, and the trade-offs between privacy and security. The episode "Who Watches AI Watching Students?" is available wherever you get your podcasts.
Following on its work with mouse stem cells, an Israeli biotech company is planning to start work creating embryos from human stem cells. Created without egg or sperm, the embryos are incubated in artificial wombs. The vision of the company is to use these "organized embryo entities" for possible organ and tissue transplant. Scientists can already use stem cells to create some tissues in vitro, but an embryo can make more complex organs, organs that would be resistant to rejection because they would be genetically identical to the intended recipient. Interesting science aside, this project creates a host of philosophical issues, from "what is a human?" and "what is life?" to "what are individuals allowed to do with their own cells?" and "are organs a crop that can be grown and harvested like any other?" www.technologyreview.com/2022/08/04/1056633/startup-wants-copy-you-embryo-organ-harvesting/
Classical philosophy is generally focused on providing tips on how we are to live our best life. Contemporary philosopher Avram Alpert instead argues that the unrelenting social obsession with "the best" is poison, preventing us from living a good life as individuals and preventing us from acknowledging the contribution of all of the people who toil in obscurity, including those who make society's superstars possible. Alpert argues that the real secret to a good life -- for individuals and for society as a whole -- is figuring out how to value a good-enough life. www.amazon.com/Good-Enough-Life-Avram-Alpert/dp/0691204357
The final Jurassic Park movie may have been disappointing, but venture capital money continues to pour into scientific ventures related to de-extinction and other use of genetic material from extinct creatures. This recording of a webinar sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences provides an excellent look at the complex scientific and philosophical issues surrounding de-extinction: scienceandentertainmentexchange.org/blog/back-from-the-dead-the-difficulties-and-dilemmas-of-de-extinction/
Can art be made by a robot? Can copies, be they restorations or simply "extras," be afforded the same status as the original? These are some of the philosophical questions posed by an effort underway at the University of Oxford to use robotic machining to recreate ancient sculptures: www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/science/elgin-marbles-3d-print.html
Reuters (UK) is reporting that Amazon is working on technology that would allow Alexa to mimic anyone's voice based on an audio sample of a minute or less. This technology is being pitched as a way to capture loved one's voices but, like deep-fake videos, raises epistemological issues ("what do we actually know when our usual sensory input can be deceived?") as well as privacy issues concerning ownership of our images and voices. www.reuters.com/technology/amazon-has-plan-make-alexa-mimic-anyones-voice-2022-06-22
When lives are on the line, who should be making decisions: artificial intelligence, with its lightning-fast ability to weigh options, or humans? This question is ever-less theoretical, with AI being built into health care systems, criminal justice systems, and, increasingly, weapons systems. The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), for example, recently launched its "In the Moment" program, designed to develop defense technology that pairs AI with expert systems to "build trusted algorithmic decision-makers for mission-critical Department of Defense (DoD) operations." www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/29/darpa-artificial-intelligence-battlefield-medical-decisions/ (Quote from www.darpa.mil/news-events/2022-03-03.)
Because I teach science fiction too, I always encourage my philosophy students to consider the darker applications of philosophical thought experiments -- like the brain in the vat -- as well. This proposed alternative to capital punishment is a bold, if creepy, application of philosophy's brain in the vat.
"Many people born into liberal democracies find corporal or capital punishment distasteful. We live in an age which says there are only three humane, acceptable ways to punish someone: give them a fine, force them to do “community service,” or lock them up. But why do we need to accept such a small, restrictive range of options? Perhaps, as Christopher Belshaw argues in the Journal of Controversial Ideas, it’s time to consider some radical alternatives. To punish someone is to do them harm, and sometimes, great harm indeed. As Belshaw writes, it’s to “harm them in such a way that they understand harm is being done in return for what, at least allegedly, they did.” Justice assumes some kind of connection between a crime and the punishment, or between the victim and the criminal. This makes punishment, in the main, retributive — a kind of payback for a wrong that someone has committed. ... Belshaw’s article hinges on the idea that the prison system is not fit for purpose. First, there’s the question of whether prison actually harms a criminal in the way we want. In some cases, it might succeed only in “rendering them for a period inoperative.” ... Second, and on the other hand, a bad prison sentence might cause more harm than is strictly proportional. A convict might suffer unforeseen abuse at the hands of guards or other inmates. ... Third, and especially concerning decades-long sentences, there’s a question about who prison is punishing. ... When we punish an old, memory-addled person convicted 40 years previously, are we really punishing the same person? ... Well, one option is to put criminals into a deep and reversible coma. One of the biggest problems with capital punishment is that it is irreversible. So long as there’s even a single case of a mistaken conviction, wrongfully killing someone is an egregious miscarriage of justice. But what if the criminal could always be brought back to consciousness? ... Putting someone in a coma essentially “freezes” a person’s identity. They wake up with much the same mental life as they did when they went into a coma. As such, it avoids the issues of punishing a changing person, decades later. A convict will wake up, years off their life, but can still appreciate the connection between the punishment and the crime they committed.But the biggest advantage a reversible coma has over prison, is that it’s standardized form of punishment. It’s a clear measurement of harm (i.e. a denial of x amount of years from your life) and is not open to the variables of greater and lesser harm in a prison environment. Essentially, putting prisoners in a coma establishes “years of life” as an acceptable and measurable payment for a wrong done. ... Even if you find the idea of induced comas as unspeakably horrible, Belshaw does at least leave us with a good question. Why do we assume that only one kind of punishment is the best? With science, technology, and societal values moving on all the time, might it be time to reconsider and re-examine how we ensure justice?" bigthink.com/thinking/comas-for-convicts Beginning tomorrow, the University of Oxford (UK) is hosting a free, weeklong, online festival of practical ethics. For the full line-up or to register, see www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/festival (If attending, don't forget to account for the timezone change.)
If you're looking for something to add to your podcast line up, "The Philosopher's Zone" from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a 30-minute dive into a different philosophical topic each week: www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/ "The Philosopher's Zone" should be available wherever you get your podcasts.
When you lose yourself in a book or a piece of music or a work of art, where do you go? This interesting piece from the digital magazine Psyche blends aesthetics and phenomenology to consider this question.
"No wonder, then, that there is a certain sense of wistfulness when it all ends, when the lights come up or the last page is turned, and we find ourselves back where we were, forced to carry on with our daily lives. ... Here we face what I call the paradox of aesthetic immersion: when I’m immersed in artwork, I seem to go somewhere without going anywhere, and I seem to be in two worlds at once, and yet I’m not properly in either. So what kind of ‘travelling’ are we talking about? ... An artwork necessarily requires a physical basis, such as pigments on a canvas, a block of marble, letters on a page, people on the stage – in short, an external object or state of affairs that the perceiver can engage with. However, the work also needs a perceiver to blossom into what [Polish phenomenologist Roman] Ingarden called the aesthetic object, the artwork as experienced: it is the consciousness of the perceiver that turns the letters on a page into an imagined world, sees a landscape in a painted surface, or hears sadness in a melody. ... Indeed, when perceiving an artwork, we often literally overlook the artwork as a physical object; I’m not usually aware of the letters on the page or the pigments on the canvas, as my consciousness glides over them and attends to the depicted or narrated world that opens up in engagement with the artwork. This world is not localisable in physical space. No map can lead me there. The only entry goes through the artwork. Neither is the artwork’s world a mere mental event inside my consciousness, like a phantasm or a memory, because I experience the artwork’s world as something external to my consciousness. ... The dull habituality of everyday life can easily make us forget how rich and varied human experience can be. We usually live through our daily hustle and bustle with a certain automatism that stultifies our ways of relating to the world and ourselves. By altering the basic experiential structures that sustain our sense of the everyday world, immersive artworks can show us that there are more possibilities of thinking, feeling and imagining than we usually realise. Immersion mobilises the mind, and makes its gears run in a new fashion. Though immersive experiences might not teach us anything in terms of ‘X is Y’, we do not necessarily return from immersion unchanged. Many are probably familiar with the way art’s magic can linger after immersion itself has dissipated, and how the world appears, at least for a while, richer, deeper and more enchanting than before. I believe such experiences are vital in leading towards a more curious and nuanced relation to the world. As the German philosopher J G Fichte (1762-1814) put it, aesthetic experiences might not straightforwardly make us wiser or better people, but ‘the unploughed fields of our minds are nevertheless opened up, and if for other reasons we one day decide in freedom to take possession of them, we find half the resistance removed and half the work done.’" psyche.co/ideas/when-art-transports-us-where-do-we-actually-go As noted in this recent article from The New York Times, "with advances in artificial intelligence and robotics allowing for more profound interactions with the inanimate" the number of people who form deep attachments to artificial "lifeforms" is likely to increase over the coming years. In Japan, thousands of people have entered into unofficial marriages with fictional characters. Are the feelings of these "fictosexuals," as those in the movement call themselves, any less real? Do these relationships serve a social need? And what are the ethical obligations, if any, of the corporate entities that own and promote (and program and update and potentially discontinue) these AI-powered objects of devotion? www.nytimes.com/2022/04/24/business/akihiko-kondo-fictional-character-relationships.html
As part of the promo for his new book, Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy With My Kids, University of Michigan philosophy professor Scott Hershovitz is inviting children ages 4 to 8 to send him their philosophical questions via The Guardian newspaper (UK), where he will try to answer them: www.theguardian.com/books/2022/apr/11/does-your-child-have-a-question-to-ask-a-philosopher
In 1974, when philosopher Robert Nozick introduced his "experience machine," it was just a thought experiment. But with big tech's race to the metaverse, it now has more pressing applications. Although Nozick argued that most people would not want to plug into the experience machine, subsequent psychological research suggests the answer is not nearly so uniform or straightforward. This article from Philosophy Now (UK) re-visits Nozick's experience machine and some of the more recent work in this area:
"Nozick asks you to imagine a machine that can simulate every experience you would like to have until the end of your life. Once you programmed this machine and plugged yourself into it, you would not be aware that the blissful experiences you are having are simulated, and you would live out your fantasies until the end of your life. ... Let’s now go back to Nozick’s question: would you plug into the experience machine and live the rest of your life out as a fantasy? The majority of people, asked this, reply no. ... From this sort of result it has been argued that ‘mental statism’ must be false. Mental statism is the view that only how experiences feel can make a life good or bad. The experience machine allows us to have the best experiences we can imagine; and still, the study showed that a large majority have the intuition that the life plugged into it is not a good life. ... [In 2010, Filipe De Brigard] put forward the idea of the ‘reverse experience machine’. Describing a thought experiment of his own, De Brigard asked study participants to imagine finding out that they have been plugged into an experience machine up until now. At this point, they are offered the possibility to leave the virtual world they’re accustomed to, knowing that reality will be much less pleasant. Facing this scenario, only 13% of the participants said they would leave the virtual world. Thus De Brigard’s study, as well as others following it, have indicated that refusals of the original experience machine offer are largely determined by status quo bias rather than by our valuing of reality. In fact, the majority of people declare they prefer reality when thinking themselves to be in the real world, but appear to prefer the simulation when imagining themselves to already be in the virtual world! ... Time [also] seems to play in favour of the pro-machine intuition. Perhaps the more people become familiar with virtual reality technologies, the more they would be prone to plug into the experience machine." philosophynow.org/issues/149/Robert_Nozicks_Metaverse_Machine TikTok is not known for its intellectually deep, thoughtful content. But more philosophers are taking to TikTok to bring philosophy to a new audience. This article from Slate profiles some of the philosophers creating content for TikTok, like a TikTok rap song on utilitarianism, and a bit of the controversy around repackaging philosophy for a medium like TikTok: slate.com/technology/2022/03/philosophy-tiktok-academics-social-media.html
What happened when three philosophers set up a booth on a street corner in New York City with a banner "Ask a Philosopher"? It turned out a wide range of people were wrestling with questions about giving their life meaning, the nature of reality, finding happiness, and more. theconversation.com/3-philosophers-set-up-a-booth-on-a-street-corner-heres-what-people-asked-110866
The University of Massachusetts-Amherst is offering a free summer residential program in philosophy June 26-July 9. This year's "Question Everything" theme is identity and diversity. Applications are due April 10. www.umass.edu/uww/programs/pre-college/residential/philosophy
For those who enjoyed -- or didn't quite get to -- the NBC philosophy comedy "The Good Place," creator Michael Schur has a new book out with the tongue-in-cheek title How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question. This article, adapted from the book, introduces the complexities involved in living an ethical life: www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/03/04/good-place-michael-schur-ethics/
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