Upcoming Event

Abstract: AI agents based on Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate human-level performance at some theory of mind (ToM) tasks (Kosinski 2024; Street et al. 2024). Here ToM is roughly the ability to predict and explain behaviour by attributing mental states to oneself and others. ToM capabilities matter for AI safety because, at least in humans, […]

Abstract: Maybe AIs have alien contents and we need a fundamentally different kind ofmetasemantics for AI systems than we do for humans. The aim is to explore a cluster of closely related topics: (i) What would it be for a system to have alien (non-human) contents and howcould we recognize these as contents? (ii) What

Abstract: The speaker will distinguish some different conceptions of alignment, exploring how each conception relates to safety and existential risk.

Abstract: Central to the inquiry of cognitive science is the idea of agents for whom there is the possibility of both success and failure. If we think that LLMs are the sort of thing that fall within the domain of cognitive science, then we should also ask whether they are agents of this kind –

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

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

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,

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

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