Philosophical Disquisitions

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. You can download the episode he...

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 li...

In this episode, Sven and John talk about relationships with machines. Can you collaborate with a machine? Can robots be friends, colleagues or, perhaps, even lovers? These are common tropes in science fiction and popular culture, but is there any credibility to them? What would the ethical status of such relationships be? Should they be welcomed or avoided? These are just some of the questions ad...

In this episode Sven and John discuss the moral status of machines, particularly humanoid robots. Could machines ever be more than mere things? Some people see this debate as a distraction from the important ethical questions pertaining to technology; others take it more seriously. Sven and John share their thoughts on this topic and give some guidance as to how to think about the nature of moral...

In this episode, Sven and John discuss the controversy arising from the idea moral agency in machines. What is an agent? What is a moral agent? Is it possible to create a machine with a sense of moral agency? Is this desirable or to be avoided at all costs? These are just some of the questions up for debate. You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast o...

In this episode Sven and John discuss the thorny topic of responsibility gaps and technology. Over the past two decades, a small cottage industry of legal and philosophical research has arisen in relation to the idea that increasingly autonomous machines create gaps in responsibility. But what does this mean? Is it a serious ethical/legal problem? How can it be resolved? All this and more is explo...

In this episode, John and Sven talk about the role that technology can play in changing our behaviour. In doing so, they note the long and troubled history of philosophy and self-help. They also ponder whether we can use technology to control our lives or whether technology controls us. You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast on  Apple , ...

In this episode, John and Sven discuss risk and technology ethics. They focus, in particular, on the perennially popular and widely discussed problems of value alignment (how to get technology to align with our values) and control (making sure technology doesn't do something terrible). They start the conversation with the famous case study of Stanislov Petrov and the prevention of nuclear war. You...

In this episode, John and Sven discuss the methods of technology ethics. What exactly is it that technology ethicists do? How can they answer the core questions about the value of technology and our moral response to it? Should they consult their intuitions? Run experiments? Use formal theories? The possible answers to these questions are considered with a specific case study on the ethics of self...

I am very excited to announce the launch of a new podcast series with my longtime friend and collaborator Sven Nyholm. The podcast is intended to introduce key themes, concepts, arguments and ideas arising from the ethics of technology. It roughly follows the structure from the book This is Technology Ethics by Sven , but in a loose and conversational style. In the nine episodes, we will cover the...

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 pos...

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,...

[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...

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 an...

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 ani...

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, philosoph...

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 econom...

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 ca...

How should we conceive of social robots? Some sceptics think they are little more than tools and should be treated as such. Some are more bullish on their potential to attain full moral status. Is there some middle ground? In this episode, I talk to Paula Sweeney about this possibility. Paula defends a position she calls 'fictional dualism' about social robots. This allows us to relate to social r...

It's clear that human social morality has gone through significant changes in the past. But why? What caused these changes? In this episode, I chat to Jeroen Hopster from the University of Utrecht about this topic. We focus, in particular, on a recent paper that Jeroen co-authored with a number of colleagues about four historical episodes of moral change and what we can learn from them. That paper...

In this episode (which by happenstance is the 100th official episode - although I have released more than that) I chat to Elise Bohan. Elise is a senior research scholar at the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford University. She has a PhD in macrohistory ("big" history) and has written the first book-length history of the transhumanist movement. She has also, recently, published the book Future...

In this episode I chat to Matthias Uhl. Matthias is a professor of the social and ethical implications of AI at the Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt. Matthias is a behavioural scientist that has been doing a lot of work on human-AI/Robot interaction. He focuses, in particular, on applying some of the insights and methodologies of behavioural economics to these questions. We talk about three recent...

In this episode (the last in this series for the time being) I chat to Olle Häggström. Olle is a professor of mathematical statistics at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Having spent the first half of his academic life focuses largely on pure mathematical research, Olle has shifted focus in recent years to consider how research can benefit humanity and how some research might be t...

In this episode I chat to Jessica Flanigan . Jessica is a Professor of Leadership Ethics at the University of Richmond, where she is also the Richard L Morrill Chair in Ethics & Democratic Values. We talk about the value of philosophical research, whether philosophers should emulate Socrates, and how to create good critical discussions in the classroom. I particularly enjoyed hearing Jessica's...

Is grading unethical? Coercive and competitive? Should we replace grading with something else? In this podcast I chat to Jesse Stommel, one of the foremost proponents of 'ungrading'. Jesse is a faculty member of the writing program at the University of Denver and is the founder of the Hybrid Pedagogy journal. We talk about the problem with traditional grading systems, the idea of ungrading, and ho...