Chris
@multiplicityct.bsky.social
PhD student in philosophy at the University of Staffordshire. Heidegger, analytic ethics (trust and mistrust), philosophy of tech/AI. Marylander. MA Staffs, MBA Duke. Wittgenstein and Cantor handshake numbers = 3 (via John Conway).
I love this entire thread. It's a kind of warped naturalistic fallacy: things that are hard about human life must be a) recent devolutions and b) evil. (To be clear, Alex isn't defending anything you don't like -- just pointing out an irritating fallacy.)
November 24, 2025 at 3:15 PM
I love this entire thread. It's a kind of warped naturalistic fallacy: things that are hard about human life must be a) recent devolutions and b) evil. (To be clear, Alex isn't defending anything you don't like -- just pointing out an irritating fallacy.)
Me: After 40+ years, I know exactly what I believe.
Also me: Ok, starting draft 7 of this journal article…
Also me: Ok, starting draft 7 of this journal article…
November 23, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Me: After 40+ years, I know exactly what I believe.
Also me: Ok, starting draft 7 of this journal article…
Also me: Ok, starting draft 7 of this journal article…
Eggnog is now in the fridge, mellowing. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
November 23, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Eggnog is now in the fridge, mellowing. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
We just booked flights and lodging for our vacation next year. So excited to go back to Helsinki and Frankfurt!
What other Scandinavian things should we do? We’re likely to use Helsinki as home base and go to Sweden, Norway, or points beyond for at least a few days.
What other Scandinavian things should we do? We’re likely to use Helsinki as home base and go to Sweden, Norway, or points beyond for at least a few days.
November 23, 2025 at 6:18 PM
We just booked flights and lodging for our vacation next year. So excited to go back to Helsinki and Frankfurt!
What other Scandinavian things should we do? We’re likely to use Helsinki as home base and go to Sweden, Norway, or points beyond for at least a few days.
What other Scandinavian things should we do? We’re likely to use Helsinki as home base and go to Sweden, Norway, or points beyond for at least a few days.
This is a great point. I've definitely written that Roombas seem more "life-like" than LLMs. The total lack of goal or drive makes LLMs a less likely candidate for a (future) "conscious" technology in my view.
Related panel discussion, also good (more wide ranging).
Choice quote from Tomasello: "If all life on earth was wiped out, ChatGPT would sit on my desk doing nothing, but my home heating system - run by a thermostat - would keep heating my house...it has a goal..."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ9Z...
Choice quote from Tomasello: "If all life on earth was wiped out, ChatGPT would sit on my desk doing nothing, but my home heating system - run by a thermostat - would keep heating my house...it has a goal..."
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ9Z...
November 22, 2025 at 4:35 PM
This is a great point. I've definitely written that Roombas seem more "life-like" than LLMs. The total lack of goal or drive makes LLMs a less likely candidate for a (future) "conscious" technology in my view.
The cat on the left (Cookie) is allegedly a stray but has now set up house with our cat Muffen (on the right). She comes in to warm up, eat, snuggle, and then she demands to go back to independent life outside. #caturday
November 22, 2025 at 4:30 PM
The cat on the left (Cookie) is allegedly a stray but has now set up house with our cat Muffen (on the right). She comes in to warm up, eat, snuggle, and then she demands to go back to independent life outside. #caturday
One major issue is that a whole lot of K-12 instruction is terrible and not engaging. Much of it conducted on computers since COVID. Not a recipe for making the most of even “remarkable” opportunities like Yale seminars once a student finally gets there.
Even Conscientious Students in Their Favorite Courses…
| By Justin Weinberg
In a philosophy seminar—“my favorite class I’ve taken so far,” she said—Gwen used AI to write almost all her essays just to avoid late submissions dailynous.com/2025/11/17/e... #AI #studying #PhilosophySky #philsky
| By Justin Weinberg
In a philosophy seminar—“my favorite class I’ve taken so far,” she said—Gwen used AI to write almost all her essays just to avoid late submissions dailynous.com/2025/11/17/e... #AI #studying #PhilosophySky #philsky
Even Conscientious Students in Their Favorite Courses… - Daily Nous
In a philosophy seminar—“my favorite class I’ve taken so far,” she said—Gwen used AI to write almost all her essays just to avoid late submissions. That's "Gwen", a student at Yale, interviewed for an...
dailynous.com
November 22, 2025 at 12:25 AM
One major issue is that a whole lot of K-12 instruction is terrible and not engaging. Much of it conducted on computers since COVID. Not a recipe for making the most of even “remarkable” opportunities like Yale seminars once a student finally gets there.
Gemini has all of a sudden become the most practically useful model to me, and Nano Banana can do amazing things in corporate comms (infographics, for example).
Especially surprised to see how quickly Claude has fallen behind.
Especially surprised to see how quickly Claude has fallen behind.
November 21, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Gemini has all of a sudden become the most practically useful model to me, and Nano Banana can do amazing things in corporate comms (infographics, for example).
Especially surprised to see how quickly Claude has fallen behind.
Especially surprised to see how quickly Claude has fallen behind.
Blindingly obvious take, but Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” and Amélie Rorty’s “Explaining Emotions” are really good. In case you were wondering whether classic papers are classic for a reason. #philsky
November 21, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Blindingly obvious take, but Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment” and Amélie Rorty’s “Explaining Emotions” are really good. In case you were wondering whether classic papers are classic for a reason. #philsky
I ran my current paper draft through an academic "AI detector" out of curiosity. It came up 56% likely to be AI written (a coin flip), labeled in red text, because of analysis like this. The word "trust" all by itself is 53% likely to be AI-written.
Hope no one is relying on these things.
Hope no one is relying on these things.
November 20, 2025 at 7:56 PM
I ran my current paper draft through an academic "AI detector" out of curiosity. It came up 56% likely to be AI written (a coin flip), labeled in red text, because of analysis like this. The word "trust" all by itself is 53% likely to be AI-written.
Hope no one is relying on these things.
Hope no one is relying on these things.
This is brilliant. LLMs are so WEIRD. Just underscores that "program them real, real good and we'll hold their curators accountable" is not a real strategy for trustworthy AI. Their curators can't hope to understand how they're going to behave under the weird stimuli humans throw at them.
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 20, 2025 at 7:35 PM
This is brilliant. LLMs are so WEIRD. Just underscores that "program them real, real good and we'll hold their curators accountable" is not a real strategy for trustworthy AI. Their curators can't hope to understand how they're going to behave under the weird stimuli humans throw at them.
Reposted by Chris
We’re watching a shift where AI simulates the cohesion and reinforcement that used to require an entire online community. A single person can now build a complete parallel reality with nothing more than a prompt window. Which seems bad.
November 19, 2025 at 2:25 PM
We’re watching a shift where AI simulates the cohesion and reinforcement that used to require an entire online community. A single person can now build a complete parallel reality with nothing more than a prompt window. Which seems bad.
LLMs can help shore up disordered thinking that otherwise would have become unsustainable (e.g., conspiracy theories). Online communities have "helped" make this problem worse, too. If you're fringe, other people can help you hold your fringe together, speed-running your rationalization of crazy.
Previously, these belief systems tended to collapse under their own weight. Contradictions and memory gaps made them hard to sustain. Now the AI removes that friction, it produces timelines, summaries, and "forensic" explanations on demand.
November 19, 2025 at 2:49 PM
LLMs can help shore up disordered thinking that otherwise would have become unsustainable (e.g., conspiracy theories). Online communities have "helped" make this problem worse, too. If you're fringe, other people can help you hold your fringe together, speed-running your rationalization of crazy.
Models are not temporal creatures. They are now awfully good at pretending to exist in time, but they don’t.
November 19, 2025 at 4:45 AM
Models are not temporal creatures. They are now awfully good at pretending to exist in time, but they don’t.
I had to retell this entire Justin Wilson anecdote to my 12yo, because she only has experience with a few American dialects and couldn't understand it. Feeling a little bit wistful about public broadcasting days gone by!
New Orleans Cajun, Justin Wilson - Squirrel Hunting
YouTube video by taaral
www.youtube.com
November 19, 2025 at 12:51 AM
I had to retell this entire Justin Wilson anecdote to my 12yo, because she only has experience with a few American dialects and couldn't understand it. Feeling a little bit wistful about public broadcasting days gone by!
What does it mean to say the animal is "poor in world" along with Heidegger? @raeandruth.bsky.social takes a close look at this, showing that his privative method has some legs. I love seeing her take on Derrida and Krell and hold her own! #philsky
Heidegger's captivated animals
Addressing Derrida's objections
substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 4:13 PM
What does it mean to say the animal is "poor in world" along with Heidegger? @raeandruth.bsky.social takes a close look at this, showing that his privative method has some legs. I love seeing her take on Derrida and Krell and hold her own! #philsky
Please believe me, Alinea did not lose its third star yesterday because of me.
The reduction of Chicago hot dog was probably the coolest part.
The reduction of Chicago hot dog was probably the coolest part.
November 13, 2025 at 11:51 PM
Please believe me, Alinea did not lose its third star yesterday because of me.
The reduction of Chicago hot dog was probably the coolest part.
The reduction of Chicago hot dog was probably the coolest part.
Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports + noise-canceling AirPods is actually perfect for an airport.
In other news, I need a less exciting life that does not involve sitting in O'Hare right now.
In other news, I need a less exciting life that does not involve sitting in O'Hare right now.
November 13, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Brian Eno's Ambient 1: Music for Airports + noise-canceling AirPods is actually perfect for an airport.
In other news, I need a less exciting life that does not involve sitting in O'Hare right now.
In other news, I need a less exciting life that does not involve sitting in O'Hare right now.
Philosophers, why does everything you do turn into a “plague of distinctions” descending on innocent people just trying to live their lives??
Amélie Oksenberg Rorty is giving me joy this morning. (From “Explaining Emotions”) #philsky
Amélie Oksenberg Rorty is giving me joy this morning. (From “Explaining Emotions”) #philsky
November 11, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Philosophers, why does everything you do turn into a “plague of distinctions” descending on innocent people just trying to live their lives??
Amélie Oksenberg Rorty is giving me joy this morning. (From “Explaining Emotions”) #philsky
Amélie Oksenberg Rorty is giving me joy this morning. (From “Explaining Emotions”) #philsky
I think this is exactly right, in part because intelligence is not a very interesting fact about us. Normativity is different - and far more interesting. Not at all clear that *intrinsic* normativity will apply to AI anytime soon, or how we would test for it (vs faking for users' benefit). #aiethics
Maybe I'm in the minority of neuroscientists, but I'm deflationary about terms like intelligence. If AI passes tests that were designed to measure these things, then we can say they have them (like we do for humans). And this is mostly what the original article says (the headline is inaccurate)
As a neuroscientist, I’d suggest there is a profound disconnect between what *some* computer scientists think is representative of “intelligence”, cognitive ability, or descriptions of consciousness from some in AI work.
LLMs are not how neural systems process information, nor how brains function.
LLMs are not how neural systems process information, nor how brains function.
November 8, 2025 at 10:41 PM
I think this is exactly right, in part because intelligence is not a very interesting fact about us. Normativity is different - and far more interesting. Not at all clear that *intrinsic* normativity will apply to AI anytime soon, or how we would test for it (vs faking for users' benefit). #aiethics
Reposted by Chris
When I started my doctorate, I had to complete the standard research ethics training. Particularly with prisoner populations, I saw many parallels to AI. #ai #artificialintelligence #llms #largelanguagemodels #aiethics
When We Decide Who Can Feel
Should AI be protected by ethical research guidelines?
open.substack.com
November 8, 2025 at 12:55 AM
When I started my doctorate, I had to complete the standard research ethics training. Particularly with prisoner populations, I saw many parallels to AI. #ai #artificialintelligence #llms #largelanguagemodels #aiethics
"The Aesthetic encourages us to entertain the thought that there could be differently formed sensibilities, which would be associated with different 'formal intuitions'." (John McDowell, "The Apperceptive I and the Empirical Self")
I'd gladly read 10 more papers of speculation on Kant's aliens!
I'd gladly read 10 more papers of speculation on Kant's aliens!
I’m interested in thinking more about how sci-fi challenges anthropocentrism in philosophy. Kant is sometimes seen as an anthropocentric philosopher. But he also thinks that there could be (or even are) morally superior extraterrestrial agents. Does this matter at all for his anthropocentrism?
November 7, 2025 at 6:18 PM
"The Aesthetic encourages us to entertain the thought that there could be differently formed sensibilities, which would be associated with different 'formal intuitions'." (John McDowell, "The Apperceptive I and the Empirical Self")
I'd gladly read 10 more papers of speculation on Kant's aliens!
I'd gladly read 10 more papers of speculation on Kant's aliens!
Sounds about right.
maybe we’re “pro science” but also “anti scientific method”
November 7, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Sounds about right.
Fascinating. I grew up near this fault line and still remember Iben Browning’s crazy 1234567890 earthquake prediction when I was in grade school.
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November 6, 2025 at 3:12 AM
Fascinating. I grew up near this fault line and still remember Iben Browning’s crazy 1234567890 earthquake prediction when I was in grade school.