Tent Talks – Détails, épisodes et analyse

This is an episode from UMass Boston’s ‘Ethics in Action’ Podcast mini-series on brain-computer interfaces that I currently co-host with sociologist and bioethicist James Hughes. In this episode, we are joined by Stefan Lorenz Sorgner. Dr. Sorgner is a philosophy professor at John Cabot University in Rome, Director and Co-Founder of the Beyond Humanism Network, Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies (IEET), and Editor-in-Chief and Founder of the Journal of Posthuman Studies. Dr. Sorgner is well known for his work on transhumanism, Nietzsche, philosophy of music, and ethics of emerging technologies, and is the author of many books, including most recently We Have Always Been Cyborgs: Digital Data, Gene Technologies, and an Ethics of Transhumanism and Philosophy of Posthuman Art. In this episode, we discuss several aspects of Dr. Sorgner’s wide-ranging work, including Nietzschean philosophy and its connection to transhumanism, Sorgner’s concept of metahumanism and how it differs from transhumanism and posthumanism, his cyborg thesis, his critique of traditional utopianism, the differing data collection models in the U.S., China, and the EU, his critique of the EU’s GDPR privacy laws, and his proposal for government-managed anonymized medical data collection to enhance technological competitiveness and support universal healthcare, among other topics.

In this episode, I speak with my former student, Aiden Gilroy. Aiden is currently a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame, majoring in Political Science and Philosophy, and working as a research writer for the Notre Dame New AI Project. Aiden has a particular focus on digital privacy and is the founder of a research study Simply Privacy, which is built to educate and influence students on the importance of Data Privacy and why privacy still matters in our digital world.

In this conversation, we discuss many topics under the AI ethics sun, including AI and cognitive offloading, the future of work, AI and virtue ethics, Transhumanism versus Ludditism, existential risk, utopias and fully automated luxury communism, AlphaFold and the promise of AI in science, AI regulation, and the ethics of AI companions.

Here is a link to Aiden’s most recent post for the Notre Dame New AI Project:  https://www.linkedin.com/posts/the-new-ai_perplexityai-aisearch-futureofsearch-activity-7317932245804007426-7ZsC?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAACx7INEBLI_

In this episode of Tent Talks, I speak with the philosopher Quassim Cassam on the topic of extremism. Dr. Cassam is a professor of philosophy at the University of Warwick and has made contributions to many different areas of the field. A lot of his earlier work focuses more on traditional topics in epistemology, like the concept of knowledge, self-knowledge, and transcendental epistemology. Recently, however, Professor Cassam has been doing work in what has been called vice epistemology and has been applying this work to real world issues. He’s written on the topic of terrorism and radicalization, conspiracy thinking, medicine, and most recently, extremism. To learn more about Professor Cassam’s work, visit his website at the following link: https://www.quassimcassam.com/

You can pre-order Professor Cassam’s forthcoming book on extremism at the following link: https://www.routledge.com/Extremism-A-Philosophical-Analysis/Cassam/p/book/9780367343873

In this episode I discuss virtual reality technology. Here are a few links to relevant articles:

In this episode of Tent Talks, I speak with my brother Brad Turner about Buddhism, the purpose of life, the possibility of the afterlife, the existence (or nonexistence) of God, the concept of rebirth and nirvana, and the nature of consciousness and the self.

In this episode I discuss the idea that we are currently living in an age of heightened existential risk. Here are links to articles/books that I reference in the episode:

The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity (Toby Ord 2020): https://www.amazon.com/Precipice-Existential-Risk-Future-Humanity/dp/0316484911

In this episode I discuss the topic of artificial intelligence and automation. Here are links to articles that I reference in the episode:

GPT–3 Guardian Article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/08/robot-wrote-this-article-gpt-3

MIT Task Force Article: https://news.mit.edu/2019/work-future-report-technology-jobs-society-0904

‘What is AI?’ Article: https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-ai-everything-you-need-to-know-about-artificial-intelligence/

In this episode I discuss how social media is deranging society and democracy by turning all of human communication into a public performance.

In this episode of Tent Talks, I speak with Professor Susanna Siegel. Dr. Siegel is the Edgar Pierce Professor of philosophy at Harvard University.  She has made significant contributions in many different fields of philosophy, and is especially well known for the work that she’s done in the philosophy of perception.  In this episode I speak with Professor Siegel about work that she’s currently doing in political philosophy.  Specifically, I ask her questions about her analysis of the emotion known as ‘schadenfreude’ and its relation to political polarization, and her analysis of the relationship between authoritarianism and science. Two op-eds that she has written on these topics, as well as another article referenced in the conversation, can be found here: https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/07/31/why-we-revel-in-opponents-adversity-column/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_content=OpinionFeedOpinionTwitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter 

https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2020/05/29/does-relying-on-science-science-strengthen-authoritarianism-or-weaken-it-column/

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx/deepfakes-and-the-epistemic-backstop.pdf?c=phimp;idno=3521354.0020.024;format=pdf

In this episode of Tent Talks, I have a wide ranging conversation with my friend Darian Spearman about many different topics, including healthcare, 2020 politics and culture, capitalism, social media, and the state of contemporary journalism.