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]

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]

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]

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]

(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]

“A Philosopher Reading,” by a follower of David Teniers the Younger, 1610-1690 (Wikimedia Commons, 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. The Internal Structure of Reading and the Internal … [continue reading]

(Kyiv Mohyla Academy, 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. What Good is Philosophy? My Answer. As an independent philosopher, resolute generalist, and a card-carrying nemo, no-name, or nobody … [continue reading]

(NYT, 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. Why Do Professional Academic Philosophers Ignore the Worldwide Problem of Guns and Gun Violence? By the problem of guns and gun … [continue reading]

(Motski, 2023) TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Religion and Morality 3. The New Apocalypse, The Spirituality-Industrial Complex, The Highest Good, and Morality 4. There’s Always a Constructive, Enabling Alternative To Every Social-Institutional Structure That’s Destructive and Deforming, Even If That Social Institution Seems To Be Eternal or Written-in-Stone 5. Realistically Optimist Dignitarian Humanism as … [continue reading]