Pope Francis presenting “Infinite Dignity” on 8 April 2024 (NYT, 2024a) You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. What The Vatican Got Right About Human Dignity and What It Got … [continue reading]
Author Archives: Robert Hanna
Misology versus Irrationality: The Case of Recidivist Trump Voters in 2024.
Donald Trump’s Farewell Address at the White House (US National Archives, 2021) You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. Misology versus Irrationality: The Case of Recidivist Trump Voters in 2024 … [continue reading]
Organic Systems, Mechanical Systems, The Dependency of The Mechanical on The Organic, and Parasystems.
(Levin, 2024) You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. Organic Systems, Mechanical Systems, The Dependency of The Mechanical on The Organic, and Parasystems In their thought-provoking essay, “Living Things Are … [continue reading]
Read Your Way to Truth, Knowledge, and Freedom.
“Girl Reading,” by Vera Alabaster, 20th Century, Harbour Cottage Trust (Art UK, 2021) You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of the post and clicking on the Download tab. Read Your Way to Truth, Knowledge, and Freedom There is … [continue reading]
Multimodal Reading and Layered Consciousness.
Two frames from Tokyo Story (dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1953) You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. Multimodal Reading and Layered Consciousness One of the greatest moments in the history of … [continue reading]
Free Speech, Hate Speech, and Higher Education: A Theory.
From left to right: Claudine Gay, former president of Harvard University, Elizabeth Magill, former president of the University of Pennsylvania, Pamela Nadell, a professor at American University, and Sally Kornbluth, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at a fateful hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on 5 December 2023 in … [continue reading]
How Reading Shines a Bright Light on Consciousness: The Science of Reading.
You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. How Reading Shines a Bright Light on Consciousness: The Science of Reading You, the reader of this very sentence, are consciously reading this … [continue reading]
OpenAI, The Superalignment Problem, and Human Values.
A simple analogy for superalignment: In traditional machine learning (ML), humans supervise AI systems weaker than themselves (left). To align superintelligence, humans will instead need to supervise AI systems smarter than them (center). We cannot directly study this problem today, but we can study a simple analogy: can small models supervise larger models (right)? (Open … [continue reading]
The Refutation of Digital Idealism: A Micro-Study in Kantian Futurism.
An enantiomorph of sentence 1 (Author’s photograph, 2023) You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. The Refutation of Digital Idealism: A Micro-Study in Kantian Futurism 1. Introduction As any Kantian … [continue reading]
AI + Reproducibility + Peer Review = A Perfect Storm in Science.
(Ball, 2023) You can also download and read or share a .pdf of the complete text of this essay by scrolling down to the bottom of this post and clicking on the Download tab. AI + Reproducibility + Peer Review = A Perfect Storm in Science Contemporary science is a juggernaut, but also multiply troubled. … [continue reading]