Latest additions to the Heap of Links…

1. “It’s hard not to feel that the machine is thinking in some meaningful way” — NYT article on what large language models are doing, and what they’re doing when they’re doing it
2. “The story of Mary Hesse shows how quickly even well-known women from our recent past can vanish from the collective memory of their peers” — Ann-Sophie Barwich (Indiana) on the mechanisms of “collective forgetting” that have erased women from the history of philosophy of science
3. The “cultural wilderness” of bad movies — 7 philosophers comment on a book by Matt Strohl (Montana) on movies that “fall outside the scope of culturally constructed notions of artistic seriousness”
4. “How is it not a ‘fallacy’ to feel guilty about something for which you are not blameworthy?” — John Martin Fischer (UCR) takes up this question and related ones about individual moral responsibility in regard to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in an interview
5. Do non-human animals have moral experiences? — James Hutton (Edinburgh) on the philosophy and science relevant to that question
6. AI-created portraits of philosophers in the style of Maurice Sendak — some fun with a new AI art generator
7. “Relying upon adjunct labor is wrong, because it is cruel” — Alexandra Bradner explains the “useless, unnecessary, and preoccupying disorder it brings to a person’s mind, family, and community”

Mini-Heap posts usually appear when 7 or so new items accumulate in the Heap of Links, a collection of items from around the web that may be of interest to philosophers. Discussion welcome.

The Heap of Links consists partly of suggestions from readers; if you find something online that you think would be of interest to the philosophical community, please send it in for consideration for the Heap. Thanks!