Sebastian Watzl
@sebastianwatzl.bsky.social
Philosophy Prof at University of Oslo. Writes all things attention - from psychology to politics and back. Author of "Structuring Mind" (OUP). PI of GoodAttention. He/His
https://www.sebastianwatzl.com/
https://www.sebastianwatzl.com/
Pinned
The attention market—and what is wrong with it - Philosophical Studies
Attention is described as a “scarce commodity” that is traded in “a marketplace.” This, it is further claimed, contributes to a “widespread sense of attentional crisis.” But is there really an attenti...
link.springer.com
What is this ‘attention economy’? Is there really a market where people buy and sell human attention? If so, what’s wrong with that? New paper by Katharine Browne and me that argues: yes, there is an attention market and yes, there is something wrong with it. 🧵
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
It's world philosophy day: talked already to people in Portugal about why distraction need not be such a bad thing. Soon speaking with @floresophize.bsky.social and her group about the attention market. I do like our philosophy world sometimes!
November 20, 2025 at 7:20 PM
It's world philosophy day: talked already to people in Portugal about why distraction need not be such a bad thing. Soon speaking with @floresophize.bsky.social and her group about the attention market. I do like our philosophy world sometimes!
There is no man made climate change. There is rich made climate change. „The richest 0.1% produces more carbon pollution in a day than the poorest 50% emit all year“
Now reflect on why we are not thinking more about how the rich are destroying the world
policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/cl...
Now reflect on why we are not thinking more about how the rich are destroying the world
policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/cl...
Climate Plunder: How a powerful few are locking the world into disaster - Oxfam Policy & Practice
Ahead of the major international climate conference COP30 in Belem, Brazil, new Oxfam research finds that the high-carbon lifestyles of the super-rich are blowing through the world’s remaining carbon ...
policy-practice.oxfam.org
November 18, 2025 at 8:49 PM
There is no man made climate change. There is rich made climate change. „The richest 0.1% produces more carbon pollution in a day than the poorest 50% emit all year“
Now reflect on why we are not thinking more about how the rich are destroying the world
policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/cl...
Now reflect on why we are not thinking more about how the rich are destroying the world
policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/cl...
Seltsam: die angeführten Studien handeln eigentlich davon wie die Bildschirmzeit **der Eltern** den Kindern schadet - weil das Sozialverhalten **der Eltern** gestört ist. Vielleicht handelt das Problem nicht von Kindern sondern von 'Technoference" in unserem **Leben**? www.zeit.de/2025/48/bild...
Bildschirmzeit von Kindern • Z+ Empfehlung: Tut ihnen das nicht an!
Studien zeigen: Bildschirmzeit schadet kleinen Kindern. Und trotzdem geben Eltern schon Ein- und Zweijährigen regelmäßig das Handy – mit drastischen Konsequenzen.
www.zeit.de
November 18, 2025 at 5:49 AM
Seltsam: die angeführten Studien handeln eigentlich davon wie die Bildschirmzeit **der Eltern** den Kindern schadet - weil das Sozialverhalten **der Eltern** gestört ist. Vielleicht handelt das Problem nicht von Kindern sondern von 'Technoference" in unserem **Leben**? www.zeit.de/2025/48/bild...
What is this ‘attention economy’? Is there really a market where people buy and sell human attention? If so, what’s wrong with that? New paper by Katharine Browne and me that argues: yes, there is an attention market and yes, there is something wrong with it. 🧵
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
The attention market—and what is wrong with it - Philosophical Studies
Attention is described as a “scarce commodity” that is traded in “a marketplace.” This, it is further claimed, contributes to a “widespread sense of attentional crisis.” But is there really an attenti...
link.springer.com
November 14, 2025 at 5:40 PM
What is this ‘attention economy’? Is there really a market where people buy and sell human attention? If so, what’s wrong with that? New paper by Katharine Browne and me that argues: yes, there is an attention market and yes, there is something wrong with it. 🧵
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
I've been invited by a national HR organization to talk to them about attention in the workplace. I have ethical/political views on this (the workplace is a main place where people are subject to undue power over their attention). Pretty sure this is not what they want to hear. Should I do it?
November 10, 2025 at 4:41 PM
I've been invited by a national HR organization to talk to them about attention in the workplace. I have ethical/political views on this (the workplace is a main place where people are subject to undue power over their attention). Pretty sure this is not what they want to hear. Should I do it?
Knowledge last is starting to seem to me about as plausible as Knowledge First. Guess i should be happy not to be an epistemologist?
November 5, 2025 at 1:42 AM
Knowledge last is starting to seem to me about as plausible as Knowledge First. Guess i should be happy not to be an epistemologist?
I might use 6-7 in my paper on what it means to communicate. It's like the original coordination device.
October 31, 2025 at 7:15 AM
I might use 6-7 in my paper on what it means to communicate. It's like the original coordination device.
Reposted by Sebastian Watzl
So it’s flown under the radar but Utah just went forward with forced labor interment camps for the homeless at the direction of the Trump administration.
We are seeing the construction of the infrastructure for industrialized death and forced enslavement for those seen as a drag on society.
We are seeing the construction of the infrastructure for industrialized death and forced enslavement for those seen as a drag on society.
October 29, 2025 at 12:25 AM
So it’s flown under the radar but Utah just went forward with forced labor interment camps for the homeless at the direction of the Trump administration.
We are seeing the construction of the infrastructure for industrialized death and forced enslavement for those seen as a drag on society.
We are seeing the construction of the infrastructure for industrialized death and forced enslavement for those seen as a drag on society.
Reposted by Sebastian Watzl
This is what happened to my Grandfather in Frankfurt, Germany on 9th November 1938, commonly known as Kristallnacht.
In Portland, Oregon, masked ICE GOONS abducted and vanished US citizen Gonzalo Catalan last week. Tragically, his family remains unaware of his whereabouts and has not received any communication from him as of today.
October 29, 2025 at 4:13 AM
This is what happened to my Grandfather in Frankfurt, Germany on 9th November 1938, commonly known as Kristallnacht.
spend Sunday morning before the rest of the family is up to write a scathing review: Done. (and happy about it)
October 26, 2025 at 7:38 AM
spend Sunday morning before the rest of the family is up to write a scathing review: Done. (and happy about it)
Reposted by Sebastian Watzl
Can AI simulations of human research participants advance cognitive science? In @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, @lmesseri.bsky.social & I analyze this vision. We show how “AI Surrogates” entrench practices that limit the generalizability of cognitive science while aspiring to do the opposite. 1/
AI Surrogates and illusions of generalizability in cognitive science
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated enthusiasm for using AI simulations of human research participants to generate new know…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 21, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Can AI simulations of human research participants advance cognitive science? In @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, @lmesseri.bsky.social & I analyze this vision. We show how “AI Surrogates” entrench practices that limit the generalizability of cognitive science while aspiring to do the opposite. 1/
Wikipedia is one of the most impressive aspect of the internet. I've started donating regularly.
So for-profit AI companies have trained on the world's largest collaborative volunteer project and a precious free resource, to make money for their for-profit enterprises. They have crushed traffic to the volunteer project, starving it of donors and volunteers
www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
“With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”
www.404media.co
October 17, 2025 at 10:07 PM
Wikipedia is one of the most impressive aspect of the internet. I've started donating regularly.
Reposted by Sebastian Watzl
So for-profit AI companies have trained on the world's largest collaborative volunteer project and a precious free resource, to make money for their for-profit enterprises. They have crushed traffic to the volunteer project, starving it of donors and volunteers
www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
“With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”
www.404media.co
October 17, 2025 at 2:28 PM
So for-profit AI companies have trained on the world's largest collaborative volunteer project and a precious free resource, to make money for their for-profit enterprises. They have crushed traffic to the volunteer project, starving it of donors and volunteers
www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
YES. It really is such a weird genre. Haven't looked, maybe there are also top-level science publications on physics in the engines of different car brands?
Psychologists running empirical studies to rediscover engineering design choices is such a strange genre of papers. By all means, run studies on LLM judgments -- but what else than lexical co-occurence and statistical priors would they be based on??
Evidence that even when LLMs produce similar results to humans, they “rely on lexical associations and statistical priors rather than contextual reasoning or normative criteria. We term this divergence epistemia: the illusion of knowledge emerging when surface plausibility replaces verification”
October 17, 2025 at 1:41 PM
YES. It really is such a weird genre. Haven't looked, maybe there are also top-level science publications on physics in the engines of different car brands?
Reposted by Sebastian Watzl
I see that OpenAI has pivoted from ‘Our mission is to supersede human intelligence for the greater good. We‘re going to cure cancer lads!‘ to ‘The Internet is for porn, give us a trillion dollars!‘. To be fair to them, the first claim was always a lie so at least they‘re being honest now.
October 15, 2025 at 6:12 PM
I see that OpenAI has pivoted from ‘Our mission is to supersede human intelligence for the greater good. We‘re going to cure cancer lads!‘ to ‘The Internet is for porn, give us a trillion dollars!‘. To be fair to them, the first claim was always a lie so at least they‘re being honest now.
I have an op-ed in my head called "Trump is a genius!" I think that is true, and important to know. (being a genius is quite compatible with being thoroughly evil)
Want to hear something frightening? Someone who has spent time with the Trump administration told me that Trump is much smarter than everyone around him.
October 13, 2025 at 9:51 PM
I have an op-ed in my head called "Trump is a genius!" I think that is true, and important to know. (being a genius is quite compatible with being thoroughly evil)
There is also good work.
I wrote about how advanced AI might gradually eat away at human interdependence, dissolving the glue that underpins human solidarity and cooperation. The risk here would not come from misaligned AI, but from how well-aligned AI threatens human alignment 👇 www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/superintel...
Superintelligence and the Decline of Human Interdependence
What happens to humanity when we no longer need each other?
www.conspicuouscognition.com
October 11, 2025 at 1:38 PM
There is also good work.
It must feel a bit weird for those philosophers and psychologists (and university admin) who did their part in fueling this bubble... (yes, all the hype about whether those machines can be conscious, the centers you opened, the jobs that you announced, they did do a part...)
“Concerns over an AI bubble bursting have grown lately, with analysts recently finding that it’s 17 times the size of the dotcom-era bubble and four times bigger than the 2008 financial crisis.”
Hang onto your butts. This “correction” is gonna hurt.
futurism.com/artificial-i...
Hang onto your butts. This “correction” is gonna hurt.
futurism.com/artificial-i...
Bank of England Warns of Impending AI Disaster
The Bank of England has sounded the alarm, warning of an intensifying risk of a "sudden correction" due to an AI spending frenzy.
futurism.com
October 11, 2025 at 1:34 PM
It must feel a bit weird for those philosophers and psychologists (and university admin) who did their part in fueling this bubble... (yes, all the hype about whether those machines can be conscious, the centers you opened, the jobs that you announced, they did do a part...)
That's why they are afraid of the comedians!
The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.
October 10, 2025 at 5:25 PM
That's why they are afraid of the comedians!
Reposted by Sebastian Watzl
The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.
October 10, 2025 at 4:39 PM
interesting, and kind of scary, actually
October 10, 2025 at 3:53 AM
interesting, and kind of scary, actually
Glad SOMEONE is looking after the Platonic form of the Schnitzel (my bad bad family talked about Käseschnitzel already in the 80s ...🤫)
Schnitzel bleibt Schnitzel! ✊️🥩🍖🥓😠
Kleiner Rant von mir zum Veggie-Schnitzel-Käse auf EU-Ebene 😇🌱
In der @diepressecom.bsky.social
www.diepresse.com/20174307/sch...
Kleiner Rant von mir zum Veggie-Schnitzel-Käse auf EU-Ebene 😇🌱
In der @diepressecom.bsky.social
www.diepresse.com/20174307/sch...
www.diepresse.com
October 8, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Glad SOMEONE is looking after the Platonic form of the Schnitzel (my bad bad family talked about Käseschnitzel already in the 80s ...🤫)
Reposted by Sebastian Watzl
twice a year the entire U.S. press becomes a marketing extension of a single billionaire-owned retailer, and nobody in any position of editorial power thinks it's weird or gross
October 8, 2025 at 1:44 PM
twice a year the entire U.S. press becomes a marketing extension of a single billionaire-owned retailer, and nobody in any position of editorial power thinks it's weird or gross
Re how the changed media and attentional landscape ('the internet') contributes ...
“No one man can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices.” -Edward R. Murrow
October 7, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Re how the changed media and attentional landscape ('the internet') contributes ...
Well, probably many causal factors. But I think I agree with Fukuyama: it's an important factor. What do people think about this?
October 7, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Well, probably many causal factors. But I think I agree with Fukuyama: it's an important factor. What do people think about this?