Mini-Heap

Links to interesting stuff elsewhere…

1. It’s a problem that AI models sometimes give unethical advice, “but it is challenging to encode the full scope of ethics” into them — so a team of researchers taught them an operationalized version of reflective equilibrium (via Nick Byrd)
2. “The problems we as faculty are facing are, in my view, deep, systemic, and entrenched before we ever see a freshman. There’s not going to be… an easy solution” — Steven Hales on responses to his “average college student these days” post
3. “Work on social justice done in academia and work done on and for the achievement of social justice in academia… are not trivial pursuits, as some philosophers seem to think” — for the tenth anniversary of Dialogues on Disability, the interviewer is interviewed
4. “Based on everything I’ve ever asked you, what do you think my biggest blind spots are?” — What happens when you ask ChatGPT this question? Economist Alex Tabarrok tried it, and shares the answers
5. “All it took was a single meme to turn back the clock by 50 years” in political philosophy — Joseph Heath on equity, equality, and that illustration of people standing on boxes looking over a fence
6. “Really powerful aesthetic experiences are dense with aesthetic properties, and that will include more subtle ones as well as more obvious ones” — acquired taste is “largely epistemic,” argues Steven Hales
7. “A philosopher of luck didn’t think “unluckiness” was a quality people had. Then he met his wife” — a story about whether luck is real (New York Magazine)

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. 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. Thank you.
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