Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence 2020
Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence
Draft Schedule
Readings
“Making AI Meaningful Again” [1]
“There is no General AI” [2]
Wed Feb 19 13:30-17:15 4h
- Introduction to philosophy for AI scientists
- A practical problem -- the need for consistently curated data
- How ontology can solve this problem
- The history of philosophy from an ontological perspective
- How philosophy can benefit AI science - the case of HL7
- Slides
Thu Feb 20 09:30 - 12:15 3h
- Searle's Chinese Room argument
- Intelligence vs. consciousness
- What is intelligence and what do intelligence tests measure?
- Driverless philosophy: How data science can help
- the history of philosophy
- to make progress in philosophy
- Readings:
- Slides
Fri Feb 21 09:30 - 12:15 3h
- The cycles of AI enthusiasm and AI winters
- Basic Formal Ontology (ISO/IEC 21838-2)
- Upper Level Ontologies
- DOLCE
- Slides
Thu May 14 15:30 - 18:15 3h
- There is no general AI
- The Turing test
- AI is a family of algorithms to automate repetitive events
- Deep neural networks have nothing to do with neurons
- AI is not artificial intelligence; it is a branch of mathematics in which the attempt is made to use the Turing machine to its limits by using gigantically large amounts of data
- The Turing test
- Slides
Student presentations
- Carola Calabrese: Universal Intelligence - A definition of Machine intelligence
- Marco Mirabello: In Defense of Truth: Skepticism, Morality, and The Matrix
- Emanuele Martinelli: Minds, Brains and Programs
- Vinicius Emmanuel Bloise: The Limits of Machine Intelligence
- Hrishikesh Gupta: Creativity and Artificial Intelligence
Fri May 15 15:30 - 18:15 3h
- AI and Transhumanism: Can we download the contents of our brains onto a computer and become immortal?
- https://buffalo.box.com/v/We-are-living-in-a-simulation Scott Adams: We are living in a simulation]
- AI and the meaning of life:
- AI and The Matrix
Student presentations
- Elia Claudio Esposito: Rationality and Intelligence
- Wei Huang: Solomonoff Induction Violates Nicod's Criterion
- Andrea dell'Orso: The Elephant Doesn't Play Chess
- Michael Denzler: Artificial Life and the Chinese Room Argument
- Fabiana Ballarin: Alan Turing and the Mathematical Objection
- Alessandro Cecconi: Which Symbol Grounding Problem Should We Try to Solve?
Tue May 19 14:30 - 17:15 3h
- Affordances and the background of Artificial Intelligence
- Making AI Meaningful Again
- Applications of AI to intelligence analysis
- Case study: using sentiment analysis for the prediction of terrorist radicalization
Student presentations
- Hrittik Roy: Theoretical Impediments to Machine Learning: The Role of Causal Modelling
- Xintan Lin: The Basic AI Drives
- David Limacher: Incorporating Ethics into Artificial Intelligence
- Tommaso Soriani: Mind Embodied and Embedded
- André Garcia Gomez: What to Do with the Singularity Paradox
Wed May 20 15:30 - 18:15 3h
- The problem of meaningful AI
- AI and intelligence analysis
- The Cognitive Process Ontology
- Warrant
Student presentations:
- Mauro Mario Gentile: Can Computer Based Human-Likeness Endanger Humanness?
- Sebastian Obrist: Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake?
- Eric Tremolanti: Why Machine Ethics?
- Lorenzo Bucci: Making AI Meaningful Again
- Michael Mazourik: The Social Dilemma of Autonomous Vehicles
Tue May 26 14:30 - 17:15 3h
- Driverless philosophy / Philosophy on rails
Wed May 27 14:30 - 17:15 3h
- Dialogue with Jobst Landgrebe (Cognotekt, Cologne) on the Social Impact of AI
Further Background Reading
- Gerald J. Erion and Barry Smith, “In Defense of Truth: Skepticism, Morality, and The Matrix”, in W. Irwin (ed.), Philosophy and The Matrix, La Salle and Chicago: Open Court, 2002, 16–27.
- Max More and Natasha Vita-More (Eds.), The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
- Jobst Landgrebe and Barry Smith, “Making AI Meaningful Again”, Synthese, DOI 10.1007/s11229-019-02192-y
Advance Notice of 2021 Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence course
Schedule
Monday February 22 2021 14:30 - 17:15 (3h)
Tuesday February 23 2021 14:30 - 17:15 (3h)
Wednesday February 24 2021 09:30 - 12:15 (3h)
Monday May 10 2021 09:30 - 12:15 (3h)
Tuesday May 11 2021 14:30 - 17:15 (3h)
Wednesday May 12 2021 09:30 - 12:15 (3h)
Monday May 17 2021 14:30 - 17:15 (3h)
Tuesday May 18 2021 14:30 - 17:15 (3h)
Wednesday May 19 2021 08:30 - 12:15 (4h)
Course Description
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the subfield of Computer Science devoted to developing programs that enable computers to display behavior that can (broadly) be characterised as intelligent. On the strong version, the ultimate goal of AI is to create an artificial system that is as intelligent as a human being. Recent striking successes such as AlphaGo have convinced many not only that this objective is obtainable but also that in a not too distant future machines will become even more intelligent than human beings.
The actual and possible developments in AI open up a series of striking questions such as:
- Can a computer have a conscious mind,
- Can it have desires and emotions?
- Would machine intelligence, if there is such a thing, be something comparable to human intelligence or something quite different?
In addition, these developments make it possible for us to consider a series of philosophical questions in a new light, including:
- What is personal identity? Could a machine have something like a personal identity? Would I really survive if the contents of my brain were uploaded to the cloud?
- What is it for a human to behave in an ethical manner? (Could there be something like machine ethics? Could machines used in fighting wars be programmed to behave ethically?)
- What is a meaningful life? If routine, meaningless work in the future is performed entirely by machines, will this make possible new sorts of meaningful lives on the part of humans?
After introducing the relevant ideas and tools from both AI and philosophy, all the aforementioned questions will be thoroughly addressed in class discussions following lectures by Drs Facchini and Smith and presentations of relevant papers by the students.
