social cognition

All posts tagged social cognition

Audio, Transcripts, and Slides from “Any Sufficiently Advanced Neglect is Indistinguishable from Malice”

Posted by Damien P. Williams on August 20, 2019

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: A Future Worth Thinking About, ableism, algorithmic bias, algorithmic justice, algorithmic systems, amazon, animal ethics, audio, bias, biomedical ethics, biotech ethics, compassion, consciousness, damien patrick williams, debbie chachra, disability, disability studies, embodied cognition, ethics, facebook, facial recognition, feminist ethics, Gayatri Spivak, gender, google, homophobia, implicit bias, intersubjectivity, Invisible Architecture of Bias, Invisible Architectures of Bias, joy buolamwini, kimberlé williams crenshaw, Machine ethics, machine intelligence, misogyny, my voice, my words, my work, my writing, neurodiversity, neuroethics, personhood rights, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of technology, race, racism, ruha benjamin, science and technology studies, science technology and society, sexism, social cognition, social dynamics, Society for Philosophy and Technology, surveillance culture, systemic disparity, technological ethics, technology, transcripts, transphobia. 2 comments

Below are the slides, audio, and transcripts for my talk ‘”Any Sufficiently Advanced Neglect is Indistinguishable from Malice”: Assumptions and Bias in Algorithmic Systems,’ given at the 21st Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology, back in May 2019.

(Cite as: Williams, Damien P. ‘”Any Sufficiently Advanced Neglect is Indistinguishable from Malice”: Assumptions and Bias in Algorithmic Systems;’ talk given at the 21st Conference of the Society for Philosophy and Technology; May 2019)

Now, I’ve got a chapter coming out about this, soon, which I can provide as a preprint draft if you ask, and can be cited as “Constructing Situated and Social Knowledge: Ethical, Sociological, and Phenomenological Factors in Technological Design,” appearing in Philosophy And Engineering: Reimagining Technology And Social Progress. Guru Madhavan, Zachary Pirtle, and David Tomblin, eds. Forthcoming from Springer, 2019. But I wanted to get the words I said in this talk up onto some platforms where people can read them, as soon as possible, for a couple of reasons.

First, the Current Occupants of the Oval Office have very recently taken the policy position that algorithms can’t be racist, something which they’ve done in direct response to things like Google’s Hate Speech-Detecting AI being biased against black people, and Amazon claiming that its facial recognition can identify fear, without ever accounting for, i dunno, cultural and individual differences in fear expression?

[Free vector image of a white, female-presenting person, from head to torso, with biometric facial recognition patterns on her face; incidentally, go try finding images—even illustrations—of a non-white person in a facial recognition context.]

All these things taken together are what made me finally go ahead and get the transcript of that talk done, and posted, because these are events and policy decisions about which I a) have been speaking and writing for years, and b) have specific inputs and recommendations about, and which are, c) frankly wrongheaded, and outright hateful.

And I want to spend time on it because I think what doesn’t get through in many of our discussions is that it’s not just about how Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, or Algorithmic instances get trained, but the processes for how and the cultural environments in which HUMANS are increasingly taught/shown/environmentally encouraged/socialized to think is the “right way” to build and train said systems.

That includes classes and instruction, it includes the institutional culture of the companies, it includes the policy landscape in which decisions about funding and get made, because that drives how people have to talk and write and think about the work they’re doing, and that constrains what they will even attempt to do or even understand.

All of this is cumulative, accreting into institutional epistemologies of algorithm creation. It is a structural and institutional problem.

So here are the Slides:

The Audio:

[Direct Link to Mp3]

And the Transcript is here below the cut:

2017 SRI Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series Final Report

Posted by Damien P. Williams on March 8, 2019

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: A Future Worth Thinking About, ableism, Adrian Willoughby, advaita vedanta, algorithmic bias, Alva Noe, animal ethics, Antonio Chella, bias, Bill Rowe, biomedical ethics, biotech ethics, buddhism, Christof Koch, compassion, consciousness, damien patrick williams, Daniel Sanchez, daoism, David Chalmers, David Gamez, David Presti, David Sahner, disability, disability studies, Earth Erowid, eastern philosophy, embodied cognition, ethics, extended mind hypothesis, feminist ethics, Fire Erowid, Gary Small, gender, Giulio Tononi, Henk Barendregt, homophobia, Ian Horswill, implicit bias, intersubjectivity, Invisible Architecture of Bias, Invisible Architectures of Bias, Joanna Bryson, John Murray, John Rushby, John Sullins III, Jonathan Moreno, Julia Mossbridge, machine consciousness, Machine ethics, machine intelligence, machine minds, Marcia Grabowecky, Mark Bickhard, my words, my work, my writing, Naveen Sundar Govindarajulu, neurodiversity, neuroethics, nonhuman animals, nonhuman personhood, nonwestern philosophy, Owen Holland, Patrick Lincoln, Paul Syverson, personhood rights, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of technology, race, racism, Robin Zebrowski, Ron Rensink, Selmer Bringsjord, sexism, shannon vallor, social cognition, social dynamics, sri international, Subash Kak, Susan Blackmore, Susan Kaiser-Greenland, Susan Schneider, taoism, technological ethics, technology, technology and consciousness workshop series, transphobia. 4 comments

So, as you know, back in the summer of 2017 I participated in SRI International’s Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series. This series was an eight week program of workshops the current state of the field around, the potential future paths toward, and the moral and social implications of the notion of conscious machines. To do this, we brought together a rotating cast of dozens of researchers in AI, machine learning, psychedelics research, ethics, epistemology, philosophy of mind, cognitive computing, neuroscience, comparative religious studies, robotics, psychology, and much more.

[Image of my name card from the Technology & Consciousness workshop series.]

We traveled from Arlington, VA, to Menlo Park, CA, to Cambridge, UK, and back, and while my primary role was that of conference co-ordinator and note-taker (that place in the intro where it says I “maintained scrupulous notes?” Think 405 pages/160,656 words of notes, taken over eight 5-day weeks of meetings), I also had three separate opportunities to present: Once on interdisciplinary perspectives on minds and mindedness; then on Daoism and Machine Consciousness; and finally on a unifying view of my thoughts across all of the sessions. In relation to this report, I would draw your attention to the following passage:

An objection to this privileging of sentience is that it is anthropomorphic “meat chauvinism”: we are projecting considerations onto technology that derive from our biology. Perhaps conscious technology could have morally salient aspects distinct from sentience: the basic elements of its consciousness could be different than ours.

All of these meetings were held under the auspices of the Chatham House Rule, which meant that there were many things I couldn’t tell you about them, such as the names of the other attendees, or what exactly they said in the context of the meetings. What I was able tell you, however, was what I talked about, and I did, several times. But as of this week, I can give you even more than that.

This past Thursday, SRI released an official public report on all of the proceedings and findings from the 2017 SRI Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series, and they have told all of the participants that they can share said report as widely as they wish. Crucially, that means that I can share it with you. You can either click this link, here, or read it directly, after the cut.

“Consciousness and Conscious Machines: What’s At Stake?”

Posted by Damien P. Williams on January 16, 2019

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: A Future Worth Thinking About, ableism, advaita vedanta, algorithmic bias, animal ethics, autonomous created intelligence, autonomous creative intelligence, autonomous generated intelligence, autonomously creative intelligence, bias, biomedical ethics, biotech ethics, buddhism, compassion, consciousness, daoism, disability, disability studies, distributed machine consciousness, eastern philosophy, embodied cognition, embodied machine consciousness, ethics, extended mind hypothesis, feminist ethics, gender, homophobia, implicit bias, intersubjectivity, Invisible Architecture of Bias, Invisible Architectures of Bias, machine consciousness, Machine ethics, machine intelligence, machine minds, my words, my work, my writing, neurodiversity, neuroethics, nonhuman animals, nonhuman personhood, nonwestern philosophy, personhood rights, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of technology, race, racism, sexism, social cognition, social dynamics, taoism, technological ethics, technology, technology and consciousness workshop series, transphobia. 1 comment

[This paper was prepared for the 2019 Towards Conscious AI Systems Symposium co-located with the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence 2019 Spring Symposium Series.

Much of this work derived from my final presentation at the 2017 SRI Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series: “Science, Ethics, Epistemology, and Society: Gains for All via New Kinds of Minds”.]

Abstract. This paper explores the moral, epistemological, and legal implications of multiple different definitions and formulations of human and nonhuman consciousness. Drawing upon research from race, gender, and disability studies, including the phenomenological basis for knowledge and claims to consciousness, I discuss the history of the struggles for personhood among different groups of humans, as well as nonhuman animals, and systems. In exploring the history of personhood struggles, we have a precedent for how engagements and recognition of conscious machines are likely to progress, and, more importantly, a roadmap of pitfalls to avoid. When dealing with questions of consciousness and personhood, we are ultimately dealing with questions of power and oppression as well as knowledge and ontological status—questions which require a situated and relational understanding of the stakeholders involved. To that end, I conclude with a call and outline for how to place nuance, relationality, and contextualization before and above the systematization of rules or tests, in determining or applying labels of consciousness.

Keywords: Consciousness, Machine Consciousness, Philosophy of Mind, Phenomenology, Bodyminds

[Overlapping images of an Octopus carrying a shell, a Mantis Shrimp on the sea floor, and a Pepper Robot]

Audio & Outline: Science, Ethics, Epistemology, and Society: Gains for All via New Kinds of Minds

Posted by Damien P. Williams on October 29, 2017

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: A Future Worth Thinking About, ableism, advaita vedanta, algorithmic bias, animal ethics, bias, biomedical ethics, biotech ethics, buddhism, compassion, consciousness, daoism, disability, disability studies, eastern philosophy, embodied cognition, ethics, extended mind hypothesis, feminist ethics, gender, homophobia, implicit bias, intersubjectivity, Invisible Architecture of Bias, Invisible Architectures of Bias, machine consciousness, Machine ethics, machine intelligence, machine minds, my words, my work, neurodiversity, neuroethics, nonhuman animals, nonhuman personhood, nonwestern philosophy, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of technology, race, racism, sexism, social cognition, social dynamics, sri international, taoism, technological ethics, technology, technology and consciousness workshop series, transphobia. 2 comments

[Direct Link to Mp3]

Above is the (heavily edited) audio of my final talk for the SRI Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series. The names and voices of other participants have been removed in accordance with the Chatham House Rule.

Below you’ll find the slide deck for my presentation, and below the cut you’ll find the Outline and my notes. For now, this will have to stand in for a transcript, but if you’ve been following the Technoccult Newsletter or the Patreon, then some of this will be strikingly familiar.

Outline: “The Minds of Others: What Will Be Known by and Owed To Nonhuman Persons?”

Posted by Damien P. Williams on September 16, 2017

Posted in: Uncategorized. Tagged: A Future Worth Thinking About, ableism, algorithmic bias, animal ethics, bias, biomedical ethics, biotech ethics, compassion, consciousness, disability, disability studies, embodied cognition, ethics, extended mind hypothesis, facial recognition, feminist ethics, gender, homophobia, implicit bias, intersectionality, intersubjectivity, Invisible Architecture of Bias, Invisible Architectures of Bias, kimberlé williams crenshaw, machine consciousness, Machine ethics, machine intelligence, machine minds, my words, my work, neurodiversity, neuroethics, nonhuman animals, nonhuman personhood, phenomenology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of technology, race, racism, sexism, social cognition, social dynamics, sri international, technological ethics, technology, technology and consciousness workshop series, transphobia. 3 comments

This summer I participated in SRI International’s Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series. The meetings were held under the auspices of the Chatham House Rule, which means that there are many things I can’t tell you about them, such as who else was there, or what they said in the context of the meetings; however I can tell you what I talked about. In light of this recent piece in The Boston Globe and the ongoing developments in the David Slater/PETA/Naruto case, I figured that now was a good time to do so.

I presented three times—once on interdisciplinary perspectives on minds and mindedness; then on Daoism and Machine Consciousness; and finally on a unifying view of my thoughts across all of the sessions. This is my outline and notes for the first of those talks.

I. Overview
In a 2013 aeon Article Michael Hanlon said he didn’t think we’d ever solve “The Hard Problem,” and there’s been some skepticism about it, elsewhere. I’ll just say that said question seems to completely miss a possibly central point. Something like consciousness is, and what it is is different for each thing that displays anything like what we think it might be. If we manage to generate at least one mind that is similar enough to what humans experience as “conscious” that we may communicate with it, what will we owe it and what would it be able to ask from us? How might our interactions be affected by the fact that its mind (or their minds) will be radically different from ours? What will it be able to know that we cannot, and what will we have to learn from it?

So I’m going to be talking today about intersectionality, embodiment, extended minds, epistemic valuation, phenomenological experience, and how all of these things come together to form the bases for our moral behavior and social interactions. To do that, I’m first going to need ask you some questions:

Audio, Transcripts, and Slides from “Any Sufficiently Advanced Neglect is Indistinguishable from Malice”

2017 SRI Technology and Consciousness Workshop Series Final Report

“Consciousness and Conscious Machines: What’s At Stake?”

Audio & Outline: Science, Ethics, Epistemology, and Society: Gains for All via New Kinds of Minds

Outline: “The Minds of Others: What Will Be Known by and Owed To Nonhuman Persons?”

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