Wayne Sumner, University Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto. ABSTRACTFew people doubt that hate speech is capable of harming the minorities that it targets. This talk will explore the various ki

White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy, Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford ABSTRACTMany people believe that collectives of certain kinds, such as corporations and states, are entities ca

Completed: Cultural Evolution in Digital Societies

This project will build on evolutionary models and insights to study how conditions change with new information pathways, and technologies capable of acting with increasing authonomy from human control.

AI & Society (2020) Abstract An intelligent machine surpassing human intelligence across a wide set of skills has been proposed as a possible existential catastrophe (i.e., an event comparable in val

in: AI & SOCIETY  AbstractAn intelligent machine surpassing human intelligence across a wide set of skills has been proposed as a possible existential catastrophe (i.e., an event comparable in valueproductivedesires, or desires that can direct behavior across multiple contexts. However, productive desires cannotsui generisbe derived from non-productive desires. Thus, even though general agency in AI could in principle be created by human agents, general agency cannot be spontaneously produced by a non-general AI agent through an endogenous process (i.e. self-improvement). In conclusion, we argue that a common AI scenario, where general agency suddenly emerges in a non-general agent AI, such as DeepMind’s superintelligent board game AI AlphaZero, is not plausible.

Venue: Institutet för framtidsstudier, Holländargatan 13, 4th floor, Stockholm, or online.Research seminar with Claes Lernestedt, Professor of Law, Stockholm University.Register hereAbstract This resear, has (at least formally) yet to start. The project might be thought of as interdisciplinary, with a base in law (I’m a criminal law professor),  Thoughts presented will be very tentative, and I welcome any kind of input.

"We live in an unpredictable time, the leading experts in artifical intelligence tell us. They have no answers and ordinary citizens are not even capable of asking the pertinent questions. We traveled

Dr Malcolm Fairbrother, University of Bristol ABSTRACTMost people say they are concerned about the serious environmental problems confronting the world today and threatening the well-being of future ge

Evolution and Human Behavior, Volume 38, Issue 3, Pages 421–427. Abstract To examine the evolutionary basis of a behavior, an established approach (known as the phenotypic gambit) is to assume that the b

Democracy's problems and possibilities

Despite the historically great success of democracy, today we can see a decline. There is also the doubt that democracy is able to tackle the most important problems of our time. In this area, the real threats to democracy are examined, as are the ways in which democracy can develop.