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Computer Simulation as “Core Philosophical Method”

“Modeling and computer simulations, we claim, should be considered core philosophical methods.” (more…)

Oxford Launches Institute for Ethics in AI with Team of Philosophers

Oxford University is bringing on three philosophy professors, two philosophy postdoctoral fellows, and two philosophy graduate students to comprise the initial academic team for its new Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence. (more…)

C$2 Million Gift to McGill Philosophy for Technology & Human Nature Professorship

The Department of Philosophy at McGill University received C$2 million (approximately $1.5 million) donation to establish an endowed chair in philosophy of technology. (more…)

Yes, There’s Still Time to Design an Excellent Fall Course (guest post by Paul Blaschko)

It’s almost August (sorry!). Do you know what you are doing in your courses this fall? Don’t panic. Paul Blaschko is back with another guest post* to explain how you still have time to put together a great course. (more…)

Hybrid & Online Teaching: Four Helpful Workshops

Julia Staffel, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Zak Kopeikin, a new graduate of the PhD program there, recently conducted four online workshops on hybrid and online teaching, sharing what they know about online teaching strategies and technology to save others the time and trouble of researching and figuring out various o..

Advocating for Tech Firms to Hire Philosophers

I have spent the better half of the last two years trying to convince companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, DeepMind, and OpenAI that they need to hire philosophers. (more…)

Philosophers Win €17.9 Million Grant for Study of the Ethics of Disruptive Technologies

A project on the ethics of socially disruptive technologies, led by Philip Brey, professor of philosophy of technology at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Twente and scientific director of the 4TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology, has received a €17.9 million (approximately $19.6 million) grant from the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Scien..

New Open Access Text On Probability & Decision

Jonathan Weisberg, associate professor of philosophy at the University of Toronto, has created a new open-access book on probability and decision-making. It has the brilliant title Odds & Ends. (more…)

Philosopher-Created Research and Productivity Software for Philosophers

Jason Winning, who worked developing commercial database software for medical professionals before recently earning a Ph.D. in philosophy and cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, has created a free, open source “personal productivity/database application” designed to be especially useful to philosophers. (more…)

New Group for Philosophers Interested in Software Engineering

Caleb Ontiveros, who left the University of Notre Dame’s PhD program in philosophy to pursue a career in tech, is often asked by people studying philosophy how he transitioned to software engineering and programming. (more…)

New: The Journal of Sociotechnical Critique

There’s a new, open-access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal focusing on philosophy of technology and related fields, with an emphasis on public engagement. (more…)

Philosophers Lead Academics’ Effort To Restrict Facial Recognition Technology

If you’re like most people, you probably haven’t been thinking much about facial recognition technology. Philosopher Evan Selinger (Rochester Institute of Technology), has, and he thinks we all should be, too, for it poses a serious threat to human welfare. Now he, Peter Asaro (a philosopher at The New School), and others have written an open letter to Amazon CEO Je..

Philosophers Appointed To High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence

The European Commission (EC), which proposes and administers European Union (EU) law and policy, has created a new High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, the aim of which is to advise on the crafting and implementation of the EU’s strategy on artificial intelligence. (more…)

Philanthropy for Philosophy: Fleeting Fad or Fertile Future?

“Are we on the cusp of a philosophy giving golden age?”

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Ubermess: Philosophers Discuss the Self-Driving Car Crash

On March 19, 2018 a self-driving Uber car-for-hire struck and killed a pedestrian, Elaine Herzberg, in Tempe, Arizona. This was not the first trouble Uber has had with its self-driving cars, nor was it the first fatal crash involving a self-driving car (for example). (more…)

Philosopher to Chair Board Advising UK Parliament Commission on Technology Ethics

Member of Parliament Darren Jones has announced the creation of a Parliamentary Commission on Technology Ethics run by him and fellow MP Lee Rowley. The Commission will work with an advisory board chaired by Luciano Floridi, Oll’s Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at Oxford University. (more…)

A Game for Gaining Logical Fluency

Matthias Jenny, who recently received his PhD in philosophy from MIT, has started working in the tech industry. He wrote to share with Daily Nous readers a game he created to help people develop basic logical fluency. (more…)

Laptops in Classrooms Revisited

Nearly two years ago, prompted by a Columbia professor’s decision to ban laptops in his classes, we discussed classroom computer and phone policies. The subject has been gaining more traction recently, owing to recent studies and an op-ed last week in The New York Times by University of Michigan education, public policy, and economics professor Susan Dynarski. (more..

Why To Discourage Laptops in Class (with slides you can show your students)

You may have seen various articles about how computers and phones in the classroom affect student performance. (more…)

Which Sciences Can Help Answer Philosophical Questions?

Can science help us answer philosophical questions? Hanoch Ben-Yami, professor of philosophy at Central European University (CEU), in an interview at 3:AM Magazine, suggests that the question is too broad. The answers are different for different scientific inquiries. (more…)

Video Interview Do’s & Don’ts

Many departments are turning towards the use of Skype and other forms of video-conferencing for first-round interviews, and such interviews are sometimes among the first times candidates and search committee members have used such technology. Noting this, Professor Mitzi Lee, placement director at the University of Colorado, writes in with a request to discuss some ..

Dennett on Politics, Philosophy, and Post-Modernism

Daniel Dennett (Tufts) is visiting the UK to promote his new book, but most of this interview with The Guardian is about US politics.

Some excerpts, including a bit about how some philosophy might be responsible for our current political predicament: (more…)

Laptops, Tablets, and Phones in the Classroom

I settled on my New Year’s resolution while giving a lecture to 85 masters students. It was one kid who unintentionally suggested the idea. He was sitting in the back row, silently pecking away at his laptop the entire class. At times, he smiled at his screen. But he rarely looked up at me. I had a choice. I could disrupt the class to single him out. Or I could do w..

AI, Go, and Philosophical Argument

After more than four hours of tight play and a rapid-fire endgame, Google’s artificially intelligent Go-playing computer system has won a second contest against grandmaster Lee Sedol, taking a two-games-to-none lead in their historic best-of-five match in downtown Seoul. The surprisingly skillful Google machine, known as AlphaGo, now needs only one more win to claim..