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MA in AI, Ethics and Society
φ/PHAI Workshop Series

φ/PHAI Workshop Series

About

Events

People

Institution

About

The Φ (PHAI) Workshop on Philosophy and AI is an interdisciplinary forum—launched with its inaugural meeting in Beijing in November 2024—that brings together philosophers, AI researchers, neuroscientists, and scholars from related fields across Asia. By fostering rigorous dialogue at the intersection of cutting-edge artificial intelligence and foundational questions about mind, knowledge, and ethics, PHAI aims to build a vibrant community dedicated to advancing the study of the philosophy of AI and to catalyzing collaborative research that bridges philosophical ideas with innovative insights across AI research and frontier sciences.

For inquiries, please contact phaiworkshop@gmail.com.

Events

The PHAI-3 workshop will be held in October 2025, in Fudan University, Shanghai. More details to be announced in due course.

The second workshop (PHAI-2) was held from 26-27 April 2025 at Peking University, preceded by Simon Goldstein’s (HKU) talk on 25 April 2025. The workshop has a roundtable and a book symposium on Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever’s forthcoming monograph Going Whole Hog: A Philosophical Defense of AI Cognition.

Link to the full program of the First Meeting.

Link to the full program of the Second Meeting.

PHAI-2 Program

APRIL 25, FRIDAY

(Venue: New Sun Student Center, Room 210, Peking University)

Satellite Event (Analytic Philosophy Forum)

15:00 – 17:00

Invited Talk

Simon Goldstein

(The University of Hong Kong)

AI Welfare: An Introduction

17:30

Dinner

DAY 1: APRIL 26, SATURDAY

(Venue: No. 54 Yannan Garden, Peking University)

	Opening Speeches & Group Photo Chair: Sebastian Sunday Grève (Peking University)
9:00 – 9:30	Yanjing Wang (Deputy Dean, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Peking University) Herman Cappelen (Director, AI & Humanity Lab, The University of Hong Kong) Haiqiang Dai (Director, Institute of Foreign Philosophy and Culture, Beijing Normal University)
	Talks 1 & 2 Chair: Qilin Li (Peking University)
9:30 – 10:30	Boris Babic (The University of Hong Kong) All Learning is Generative
10:40 – 11:40	Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen (Yonsei University) AI-based Belief, Robustness, and Knowledge
11:40 – 13:30	Lunch
	Book Symposium Chair: Long Chen (Beijing Normal University)
13:30 – 13:45	Herman Cappelen (The University of Hong Kong) Précis of Going Whole Hog: A Philosophical Defense of AI Cognition
13:45 – 14:05	Zhiwei Gu (Fudan University) Hog, the Game of Lack Continues Cappelen response
14:05 – 14:25	Sebastian Sunday Grève (Peking University) LLMs and Intelligence Cappelen response
14:25 – 14:45	Qiaoying Lu (Peking University) AI Intention Is Unobservable Cappelen response
14:45 – 15:15	Open Discussion
15:15 – 15:45	Tea Break
	Talks 3 & 4 Chair: Jixin Liu (Sichuan University)
15:45 – 16:45	Ziheng Zhou (University of California, Los Angeles) AI and Ethics
16:55 – 17:55	Yiwen Zhan (Beijing Normal University) The X Game and How Metacognitive AI Might Play It
18:00	Dinner

DAY 2: APRIL 27, SUNDAY

(Venue: No. 54 Yannan Garden, Peking University)

	Talks 5 & 6 Chair: Xiaoyu Ke (East China Normal University)
9:30 – 10:30	Xiaoyuan Yi (Microsoft Research Asia) Value Compass: Towards Comprehensive, Generative and Self-Evolving Evaluation of LLMs’ Value Alignment
10:40 – 11:40	Bolun Zhang (Zhejiang University) Tinkering Against Scaling
11:40 – 13:30	Lunch
	Roundtable part 1 Chair: Haiqiang Dai (Beijing Normal University)
13:30 – 14:10	*Thematic Section 1: Frontiers of AI* Mini Keynote: Junqi Wang (Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence) Discussion
14:10 – 14:50	*Thematic Section 2: Cognition and Neuroscience* Mini Keynote: Jianqiao Ge (Peking University) Discussion
14:50 – 15:00	Tea Break
	Roundtable part 2 Chair: Yuzhou Wang (Peking University)
15:00 – 15:40	*Thematic Section 3: AI and Society* Mini Keynote: Brian Wong (The University of Hong Kong) Discussion
15:40 – 16:00	Open Discussion
	Closing Speeches Chair: Yiwen Zhan (Beijing Normal University)
16:00 – 16:20	Shuifa Han (Director, Institute of Foreign Philosophy, Peking University) Lesong Cheng (Dean, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Peking University)
16:30 – 18:00	PHAI business meeting
18:00	Dinner

The first workshop (PHAI-1) was held on Nov. 7, in Beijing Normal University. Link to download the full program.

PHAI-1 Program

9:00 – 9:10	Open Remark: Hong Li Group Photo
	Chair: Chuang Ye
9:10 – 10:10	Xing Xie Societal AI: Tackling AI Challenges with Social Science Insights
10:20 – 11:20	Herman Cappelen AI Survival Stories: A Taxonomic Analysis of AI Existential Risk (co-authored with Simon Goldstein, and John Hawthorne)
11:20 – 13:00	lunch break
	Chair: Haiqiang Dai
13:00 – 14:00	Sebastian Sunday Grève Can Machines Acquire Human Mindedness?
14:05 – 15:05	Linus Huang AI, Normality, and Oppressive Things
15:10 – 16:10	Junqi Wang Theory of Mind: from a Modelling Perspective
16:15 – 18:00	Roundtable Discussion Chair: Yiwen Zhan Discussants: All Participants
18:00	dinner

People

PHAI Program Committee
Boris Babic (The University of Hong Kong)
Herman Cappelen (The University of Hong Kong)
Haiqiang Dai (Beijing Normal University)
Jianqiao Ge (Peking University)
Zhiwei Gu (Fudan University)
Xiaoyu Ke (East China Normal University)
Chuang Liu (Fudan University; Chinese Academy of Sciences)
Jixin Liu (Sichuan University)
Qiaoying Lu (Peking University)
Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen (Yonsei University)
Qianqian Sun (Central Academy of Fine Arts)
Sebastian Sunday Grève (Peking University)
Junqi Wang (Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence)
Yiwen Zhan (Beijing Normal University)

Institution

Department of Philosophy, The University of Hong Kong

Department of Philosophy, The University of Hong Kong