Our next meeting will be on September 6 and we will go over Christian List’s survey article on Social Choice from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
A two-day conference on the philosophy of deep learning, organized by Ned Block (New York University), David Chalmers (New York University) and Raphaël Millière (Columbia University), and jointly sponsored by the Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience program at Columbia University and the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at New York University.
About
The conference will explore current issues in AI research from a philosophical perspective, with particular attention to recent work on deep artificial neural networks. The goal is to bring together philosophers and scientists who are thinking about these systems in order to gain a better understanding of their capacities, their limitations, and their relationship to human cognition.
The conference will focus especially on topics in the philosophy of cognitive science (rather than on topics in AI ethics and safety). It will explore questions such as:
- What cognitive capacities, if any, do current deep learning systems possess?
- What cognitive capacities might future deep learning systems possess?
- What kind of representations can we ascribe to artificial neural networks?
- Could a large language model genuinely understand language?
- What do deep learning systems tell us about human cognition, and vice versa?
- How can we develop a theoretical understanding of deep learning systems?
- How do deep learning systems bear on philosophical debates such as rationalism vs empiricism and classical vs. nonclassical views of cognition.
- What are the key obstacles on the path from current deep learning systems to human-level cognition?
A pre-conference debate on Friday, March 24th will tackle the question “Do large language models need sensory grounding for meaning and understanding ?”. Speakers include Jacob Browning (New York University), David Chalmers (New York University), Yann LeCun (New York University), and Ellie Pavlick (Brown University / Google AI).
Conference speakers
- Cameron Buckner (University of Houston)
- Rosa Cao (Stanford University)
- Ishita Dasgupta (DeepMind)
- Nikolaus Kriegeskorte (Columbia University)
- Brenden Lake (New York University / Meta AI)
- Grace Lindsay (New York University)
- Tal Linzen (New York University / Google AI)
- Raphaël Millière (Columbia University)
- Nicholas Shea (Institute of Philosophy, University of London)
Call for abstracts
We invite abstract submissions for a few short talks and poster presentations related to the topic of the conference. Submissions from graduate students and early career researchers are particularly encouraged. Please send a title and abstract (500-750 words) to phildeeplearning@gmail.com by January 22nd, 2023 (11.59pm EST).
https://philevents.org/event/show/106406
Yejin Choi is Wissner-Slivka Professor and a MacArthur Fellow at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington. She is also a senior director at AI2 overseeing the project Mosaic and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute for Ethics in AI at the University of Oxford. Her research investigates if (and how) AI systems can learn commonsense knowledge and reasoning, if machines can (and should) learn moral reasoning, and various other problems in NLP, AI, and Vision including neuro-symbolic integration, language grounding with vision and interactions, and AI for social good. She is a co-recipient of 2 Test of Time Awards (at ACL 2021 and ICCV 2021), 7 Best/Outstanding Paper Awards (at ACL 2023, NAACL 2022, ICML 2022, NeurIPS 2021, AAAI 2019, and ICCV 2013), the Borg Early Career Award (BECA) in 2018, the inaugural Alexa Prize Challenge in 2017, and IEEE AI’s 10 to Watch in 2016.
The speaker will be Prof. Lewis Gordon of the University of Connecticut, on “From Harlem to the World: Philosophy from a Center of the Black World with Questions for the 21st Century.” Gordon will talk about worldliness and public aspects of philosophy, placing them in the context of Harlem both at City College and the public world of Africana philosophy from Du Bois to Malcolm X to contemporaries such as Nathalie Etoke. He will conclude with a set of questions for 21st century philosophy to consider.
Lewis R. Gordon is Professor and Head of the Department of Philosophy at UCONN-Storrs; Honorary President of the Global Center for Advanced Studies; Honorary Professor in the Unit for the Humanities at Rhodes University, South Africa; and Distinguished Scholar at The Most Honourable PJ Patterson Centre for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy at The University of the West Indies, Mona. He co-edits the journal Philosophy and Global Affairs, the Rowman & Littlefield book series Global Critical Caribbean Thought, and the Routledge-India book series Academics, Politics and Society in the Post-Covid World. He is the author of many books, including, most recently, Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization (Routledge, 2021) and Fear of Black Consciousness (hardcover, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022; in the UK, London: Penguin Books, 2022), Picador paperback 2023. He is the 2022 recipient of the Eminent Scholar Award from the Global Development Studies division of the International Studies Association.
Join us for a special live taping of the Clearer Thinking podcast. Host Spencer Greenberg and guest Jeff Sebo will discuss the moral status of insects and AI systems, as well as other thorny questions in global priorities research.
About the speakers
Jeff Sebo is Associate Professor of Environmental Studies, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, Philosophy, and Law, Director of the Animal Studies M.A. Program, Director of the Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program, and Co-Director of the Wild Animal Welfare Program at New York University. He is the author of Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves (2022) and co-author of Chimpanzee Rights (2018) and Food, Animals, and the Environment (2018). He is also an executive committee member at the NYU Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, a board member at Minding Animals International, an advisory board member at the Insect Welfare Research Society, a senior research fellow at the Legal Priorities Project, and a mentor at Sentient Media.
Spencer Greenberg is an entrepreneur and mathematician with a focus on improving human well-being. He’s the founder of ClearerThinking.org, which provides 70 free, digital tools to help people make better decisions and improve their lives, as well as the host of the Clearer Thinking podcast. Spencer is also the founder of Spark Wave, an organization that conducts psychology research and builds psychology-related products designed to help benefit the world. He has a Ph.D. in applied math from New York University, with a specialty in machine learning, and his work has been featured by numerous major media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, the Independent, the New York Times, Gizmodo, and more.
Thank you to Effective Altruism New York City for their generous support of this event.