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Abstract: Since the 1960s, philosophers have seriously considered the possibility that psychological states could be multiply realizable in not only in humans and other terrestrial creatures, but also in potential alien and artificial cognizers. For many it has become an accepted constraint on our theories of the nature of perception and cognition that they would …

Aliens, Octopuses, and Robots, Again Read More »

Abstract: Since the 1960s, philosophers have seriously considered the possibility that psychological states could be multiply realizable in not only in humans and other terrestrial creatures, but also in potential alien and artificial cognizers. For many it has become an accepted constraint on our theories of the nature of perception and cognition that they would …

Aliens, Octopuses, and Robots, Again Read More »

Date: March 26-27, 2025 (Wednesday, Thursday) Time: 09:30 – 16:30 (Programme rundown will be provided later) Venue: 11/F, Cheng Yu Tung Tower, HKU Registration: here Dr Frank Hong, The University of Hong Kong Prof Darrell Rowbottom, Lingnan University Prof Jiji Zhang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Dr Pak-Hang Wong, Hong Kong Baptist University Dr Jun Otsuka, Kyoto University …

Philosophy of AI in Asia Workshop Read More »

Abstract: The idea that advances in the cognitive capacities of foundation models like LLMs will lead to a period of rapid, recursive self-improvement — an “intelligence explosion” or “technological singularity” — has recently come under sustained criticism by academic philosophers. I evaluate the extent to which this criticism successfully undermines the argument for a singularity, …

What remains of the singularity hypothesis? Read More »

Abstract: Existing approaches to evaluating LLM ethical competence place too much emphasis on the verdicts—of permissibility and impermissibility—that they render. But ethical competence doesn’t consist in one’s judgments conforming to those of a cohort of crowdworkers. It consists in being able to identify morally relevant features, prioritise among them, associate them with reasons and weave …

Evaluating LLM Ethical Competence Read More »

Abstract: Can AI systems such as ChatGPT think? This paper presents an argument from rationality for the negative answer to this question. The argument is founded on two central ideas. The first is that if ChatGPT thinks, it is not rational, in the sense that it does not respond correctly to its evidence. The second …

Why ChatGPT Doesn’t Think: An Argument from Rationality (Co-authored with Zhihe Vincent Zhang, ANU) Read More »

Abstract: LLMs have dramatically improved in capabilities in recent years. This raises the question of whether LLMs could become genuine agents with beliefs and desires. This paper demonstrates an in principle limit to LLM agency, based on their architecture. LLMs are next word predictors: given a string of text, they calculate the probability that various …

LLMs Can Never Be Ideally Rational Read More »