General Assembly of the World Values Survey Associationwill meet in Doha, Qatar, March, 18–22 at the World Conference on “The Rise of Public Engagement, in the region and in the World”. The conference , (Social and Economic Survey Research Institute and the Arab Barometer.

Cogito Machina - Investigating the emergence of artificial general intelligence

Is AGI emergent? In order to know, several questions need to be answered and this project aims to provide the answeres. What is AGI? What is required for a system to have it, and how might we know whether AGI is emergent in a system. 

In: Mosquera, J. & O. Torpman (ed.),Studies on Climate Ethics and Future Generations vol. 6. Working Paper Series 2024:10–17 Abstract In this paper, I analyse whether the present generation’s choices. This has been tentatively suggested in both legal theory and philosophy; I review such suggestions briefly in section 1. However, a more rigorous analysis – outlining the concept, relevant grounds, and wrong-making features of discrimination, and applying these to future generations – is still lacking. To address this lacuna, I propose a theory of discrimination and analyse why it might seem to apply – yet ultimately fails to apply – to the differential treatment of future generations. More specifically, I propose a definition of discrimina­tion (section 2.1) and an account of the moral wrongness of discrimination (section 2.2). I moreover explore the connection between discrimination and theories of social (in)justice (section 2.3). I then apply this theory to the problem of differential treatment of future generations. While discri­mination may occur between collectives, such as generations (section 3.1), my analysis shows that the specific temporal status of future genera­tions is not comparable to other grounds of discrimination, such as gender or race (section 3.2). Moreover, due the non-identity problem and the problem of lack of a “community of social meaning” between generations, future generations cannot be claimed to be subjected to worse treatment by the present generation (section 3.3). Hence, their differential treatment due to the present generation’s choices does not amount to discrimination. Section 4 concludes and outlines some upshots of my analysis.

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.

The purpose of the project is to stimulate and discuss knowledge-based text production alongside the dominant academic formats, to contribute to more animated writing and readable texts by scholars, and thereby enlarge their audience.

Doctoral thesis in practical philosophy, Stockholm: Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University. Abstract In this study I analyse the performance of a democratic decision-making rule: the weighted ma

Regulation & Governance Abstract As scholars race to address the climate crisis, they have often treated the problem as sui generisand have only rarely sought to learn from prior efforts to make indu

This paper will relate the worsened situation for low educated in general, and youth in particular, to two institutional factors: a changed organisation of vocational education in upper secondary scho

Bi Puranen

Secretary General of the World Values Survey Association and Principal Investigator of WVS Sweden. I am affiliated as Senior Research Fellow to the Institute for Futures Studies. My research is focused