Philosophical Disquisitions – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, John and Sven answer questions from podcast listeners. Topics covered include: the relationships between animal ethics and AI ethics; religion and philosophy of tech; the analytic-continental divide; the debate about short vs long-term risks; getting engineers to take ethics seriously and much much more. Thanks to everyone that submitted a question.

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What does the future hold for humanity's relationship with technology? Will we become ever more integrated with and dependent on technology? What are the normative and axiological consequences of this? In this episode, Sven and John discuss these questions and reflect, more generally, on technology, ethics and the value of speculation about the future.

You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon and a range of other podcasting services.

Recommended Reading

• Mark Coeckelbergh The Political Philosophy of AI
• David Chalmers Reality+

In this episode, I chat to Matthijs Maas about pausing AI development. Matthijs is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Legal Priorities Project and a Research Affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. In our conversation, we focus on the possibility of slowing down or limiting the development of technology. Many people are sceptical of this possibility but Matthijs has been doing some extensive research of historical case studies of, apparently successful, technological slowdown. We discuss these case studies in some detail.

You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon or whatever your preferred service might be.

• Recording of Matthijs's Chalmers about this topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn4ADfyrJ0Y&t=2s 
• Slides from this talk -- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J9RW49IgSAnaBHr3-lJG9ZOi8ZsOuEhi/view?usp=share_link
• Previous essay / primer, laying out the basics of the argument:  https://verfassungsblog.de/paths-untaken/
• Incomplete longlist database of candidate case studies: https://airtable.com/shrVHVYqGnmAyEGsz

In this episode of the podcast I chat to Atoosa Kasirzadeh. Atoosa is an Assistant Professor/Chancellor's fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She is also the Director of Research at the Centre for Technomoral Futures at Edinburgh. We chat about the alignment problem in AI development, roughly: how do we ensure that AI acts in a way that is consistent with human values. We focus, in particular, on the alignment problem for language models such as ChatGPT, Bard and Claude, and how some old ideas from the philosophy of language could help us to address this problem.

You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon or whatever your preferred service might be.

• Atoosa's webpage

• Atoosa's paper (with Iason Gabriel) 'In Conversation with AI: Aligning Language Models with Human Values'

[UPDATED WITH CORRECT EPISODE LINK]

In this episode I chat to Miles Brundage. Miles leads the policy research team at Open AI. Unsurprisingly, we talk a lot about GPT and generative AI. Our conservation covers the risks that arise from their use, their speed of development, how they should be regulated, the harms they may cause and the opportunities they create. We also talk a bit about what it is like working at OpenAI and why Miles made the transition from academia to industry (sort of). Lots of useful insight in this episode from someone at the coalface of AI development.

You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon or whatever your preferred service might be.

In this episode of the podcast I chat to Jess Morley. Jess is currently a DPhil candidate at the Oxford Internet Institute. Her research focuses on the use of data in healthcare, oftentimes on the impact of big data and AI, but, as she puts it herself, usually on 'less whizzy' things. Sadly, our conversation focuses on the whizzy things, in particular the recent hype about large language models and their potential to disrupt the way in which healthcare is managed and delivered. Jess is sceptical about the immediate potential for disruption but thinks it is worth exploring, carefully, the use of this technology in healthcare.

You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon or whatever your preferred service might be.

• Jess's Website
• Jess on Twitter
• John Snow's cholera map 

In this episode, I chat to Robert Long about AI sentience. Robert is a philosopher that works on issues related to the philosopy of mind, cognitive science and AI ethics. He is currently a philosophy fellow at the Centre for AI Safety in San Francisco. He completed his PhD at New York University. We do a deep dive on the concept of sentience, why it is important, and how we can tell whether an animal or AI is sentient. We also discuss whether it is worth taking the topic of AI sentience seriously.

You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon or whatever your preferred service might be.

• Robert's webpage
• Robert's substack

In this episode of the podcast, I talk to Thore Husfeldt about the impact of GPT on education. Thore is a Professor of Computer Science at the IT University of Copehagen, where he specialises in pretty technical algorithm-related research. He is also affiliated with Lund University in Sweden. Beyond his technical work, Thore is interested in ideas at the intersection of computer science, philosophy and educational theory. In our conversation, Thore outlines four models of what a university education is for, and considers how GPT disrupts these models. We then talk, in particular, about the 'signalling' theory of higher education and how technologies like GPT undercut the value of certain signals, and thereby undercut some forms of assessment. Since I am an educator, I really enjoyed this conversation, but I firmly believe there is much food for thought in it for everyone.

You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon or whatever your preferred service might be.

In this episode of the podcast, I chat to Anton Korinek about the economic impacts of GPT. Anton is a Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia and the Economics Lead at the Centre for AI Governance. He has researched widely on the topic of automation and labour markets. We talk about whether GPT will substitute for or complement human workers; the disruptive impact of GPT on the economic organisation; the jobs/roles most immediately at risk; the impact of GPT on wage levels; the skills needed to survive in an AI-enhanced economy, and much more.

You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon or whatever your preferred service might be.

• Anton's homepage
• Anton's paper outlining 25 uses of LLMs for academic economists
• Anton's dialogue with GPT, Claude and the economic David Autor

In this episode of the podcast, I chat to Olle Häggström. Olle is a professor of mathematical statistics at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. We talk about GPT and LLMs more generally. What are they? Are they intelligent? What risks do they pose or presage? Are we proceeding with the development of this technology in a reckless way? We try to answer all these questions, and more.

You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, Amazon or whatever your preferred service might be.