SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY COURSES

The Life of the Mind in the Age of Intelligent Machines:

What Humans & Machines are Doing When We Think, How It Differs, & Why that Matters

Prof. David Peritz

Sundays; July 23, July 30, Aug 20, Aug 27, Sep 17 & Sep 24 2023 (6 lectures)2:00-4:00 pm EST (11:00 am-1:00 pm PST)(recordings available for (re-)viewing at your leisure)

We now live in a world where computational machines built by humans are learning to speak natural human languages in ways that allow them to generate original and convincing forms of communication. This means they now pass the test articulated by one of the fathers of modern computing, Alan Turing, for ascribing the capacity to think to machines. Computers also now exceed human intelligence in a wide variety of domains, for instance, reading medical diagrams, managing electronic communication and commerce, playing chess and go, guiding weapons… And there is no reason to expect that machine intelligence won’t continue to grow at an exponential rate, especially if computers (which currently already train themselves to learn new tasks) become better than humans at programming themselves to learn (designing more sophisticated neural nets or new architectures of cognition) and designing their own hardware. Does all of this mean that we are entering the era of thinking machines? To answer this question, we need to be clear about what we humans mean by thinking and how much the truly impressive capacities of machines to learn and solve problems reflects something akin to human thought. In other words, current developments in AI solicit an investigation that integrates philosophy and psychology, alongside cognitive, brain and computer science. Further, to the extent that the potential take-off of machine intelligence makes it prudent to anticipate the arrival of artificial general super-intelligence (i.e., intelligence across a wide range of domains that exceeds human intelligence) in the current century, practical questions concerning the regulation of the use and control of this technology also require urgent attention.

The Life of the Mind in the Age of Intelligent Machines:

What Humans & Machines are Doing When We Think, How It Differs, & Why that Matters

Prof. David Peritz

Sundays; July 23, July 30, Aug 20, Aug 27, Sep 17 & Sep 24 2023 (6 lectures)2:00-4:00 pm EST (11:00 am-1:00 pm PST)(recordings available for (re-)viewing at your leisure)

In this course, we will discuss these wide-ranging issues from various perspectives, in part by addressing classical and contemporary scholarship in philosophy of mind and ethics, cognitive, brain and computer science, and various policy proposals for the regulation of AI. Given the broad ranging nature of the relevant material, I will also bring in conversation partners with specialized expertise in various topics to discuss these themes. Finally, rather than attempting to tackle all of this in six consecutive weeks, this course will be structured with two consecutive classes per month, followed by a break to digest and recover, and then two more classes over each of the following two months. The classes will occur on Sundays in July, August and September, and recordings will be available for anyone who is not able to participate live in any session (or who want to ponder the material covered for a second time). The broad outline for topics to be covered includes two classes on our best efforts to understand the nature of the life of the human mind (July), two classes on the nature of and prospects for the growth of machine intelligence (August), and two classes on different scenarios for interaction between human and machine intelligence and proposals for norms and policies with the best prospects to make this interaction as ethical, safe and mutually beneficial as possible. A detailed outline, including invited guest experts, will be made available as soon as possible.

Urgent Issues, Dangerous Politics, 2022:

National Elections at a Time of Constitutional Crisis and Radical Partisanship

Explorations in current politics and philosophy

Course Outline

Lecture 1: The Dynamics Driving the 2022 Mid-term Elections and Their Likely Impact A Preliminary Framework for Thinking about the Elections of 2022: Can Midterm Elections Feature a Contest Between Normal and Constitutional Politics? What would it Mean for American Politics to Enter a Constitutional Phase in a Period of Radical Partisanship?

Lecture 2: How to repair a Broken Economy? Is the Global Economy Broken? Can it be Repaired? Policy Debates on Creating a More Just and Humane Economy in a Post-COVID World.

Lecture 3: Can Global Order be rescued? The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the Question of Whether Global Order can be Secured in the Middle of the 21st Century in Time to Cope with Climate Change, Pandemics, the Rogue States, a New Cold War, and Other Existential Issues.

Lecture 4: Unity or fracture? Race, Gender, Sexuality, Immigration, Religion, and Education: Will the Transition to a Multi-Racial, Post-Traditional Society Fracture the United States?

Lecture 5: Can we control technology or will it control us? Can Unregulated and Radically Accelerated Technological Change be Mastered Before it Completely Disrupts our Knowledge System and Public Sphere, Re-engineers our Attention, Changes our Food and Nutrition, and Alters our Biology?

Lecture 6: Decoding Election Results in U.S. 2022. What Just Happened? Preliminary Reflections on the Outcomes of the 2022 Elections.

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Fieldnotes from a World on Fire: Understanding Climate Change and our Prospects for Adverting Global Catastrophe

Foundation in the state of the current scientific
knowledge of climate change.

Prof. David Peritz

Course Outline

Lesson 1: The Complex but Certain Science of Global Climate Change.Lesson 2: Climate Change, Pandemic, A Vulnerable World, and the Existential Threat of Inaction.Lesson 3: From Economy to Energy & Technology: The Nature and Limits of the Response to the Climate Crisis Until Now.Lesson 4: The Great Derangement: Why Are We Not Changing in the Face of Climate Change?Lesson 5: Global Interconnectivity, History, and Ethics in the Anthropocene.Lesson 6: The Politics of an Effective Response versus the Consequence of Failure: From Just Climate Action to Desperate Gambits.

Urgent Issues, Dangerous Politics, 2022:

National Elections at a Time of Constitutional Crisis and Radical Partisanship

Explorations in current politics and philosophy

Course Outline

Lecture 1: The Dynamics Driving the 2022 Mid-term Elections and Their Likely Impact A Preliminary Framework for Thinking about the Elections of 2022: Can Midterm Elections Feature a Contest Between Normal and Constitutional Politics? What would it Mean for American Politics to Enter a Constitutional Phase in a Period of Radical Partisanship?

Lecture 2: How to repair a Broken Economy? Is the Global Economy Broken? Can it be Repaired? Policy Debates on Creating a More Just and Humane Economy in a Post-COVID World.

Lecture 3: Can Global Order be rescued? The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the Question of Whether Global Order can be Secured in the Middle of the 21st Century in Time to Cope with Climate Change, Pandemics, the Rogue States, a New Cold War, and Other Existential Issues.

Lecture 4: Unity or fracture? Race, Gender, Sexuality, Immigration, Religion, and Education: Will the Transition to a Multi-Racial, Post-Traditional Society Fracture the United States?

Lecture 5: Can we control technology or will it control us? Can Unregulated and Radically Accelerated Technological Change be Mastered Before it Completely Disrupts our Knowledge System and Public Sphere, Re-engineers our Attention, Changes our Food and Nutrition, and Alters our Biology?

Lecture 6: Decoding Election Results in U.S. 2022. What Just Happened? Preliminary Reflections on the Outcomes of the 2022 Elections.