FFF: Maria Serban

Featured Former Fellow Lunchtime Talk: Maria Serban, University of East Anglia

The trouble with construct validity

 

Abstract: An important part in the methodological discourse of psychology focuses on establishing the field as a hard science. The longstanding operationalist tradition emphasised the commitment to experimentalism, to identifying and individuating measurable variables, and to developing local and general theories on the go and on the back of these measurements. However, the growing reputation and interest in psychology was often accompanied by a matching distrust of a science lacking general theories and formal frameworks for explaining the phenomena argued to fall into its domain. To acknowledge the problem of theory avoidance in psychology, the methodological discourse has been expanded with the notion of construct validity. Its main purpose was to flag that in validating the measuring procedures used routinely in psychology one can achieve the theoretical progress desired by many.

This paper challenges the idea that construct validity has played this role of bridging the gap between measurement and theory assigned to it in the general methodological discourse of psychometrists.

I will start with a brief historical overview of how and why the notion of construct validity was introduced in experimental psychology. Then I will situate this notion in the broader methodological discourse of experimental psychology, which will allow me to articulate some challenges facing the practises developed around the notion of construct validity. I illustrate these challenges with the help of two case studies, following the outline of research into general intelligence and memory research. I conclude with some reflections on the proper place of construct validation in the methodological discourse and practices of psychology.

 

This lecture is an online only event, registration is required. Please register at https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_RG66U8R0QVivD9gZkg0Mmw

LTT: J. Norton

John D. Norton, Distinguished University Professor of HPS, University of Pittsburgh

How Analogy Helped Create the New Science of Thermodynamics

ABSTRACT:  In 1824, Sadi Carnot’s “On the Motive Power of Fire” laid out the general framework of thermodynamics. The work seems to burst unexpected and fully formed into science, brimming with extraordinary, novel ideas. He is confident that a quite general theory of the efficiency of all heat engines is possible, even though heat engines can have many different designs, each employing many different component processes. The analysis is based on the internally contradictory idea of thermodynamically reversible processes. They are processes that proceed infinitely slowly so that nothing actually happens. How did Sadi Carnot come up with these extraordinary ideas? My talk with attempt an answer.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

Zoom registration:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rMNQwCQTS6abGhjg8IgFwQ

LTT: E. Fischer

Eugen Fischer, University of East Anglia, Center Visiting Fellow

Experimental Argument Analysis: How Stereotypes Shape Arguments

ABSTRACT: The analysis of philosophical arguments is commonly regarded as model of an armchair activity. The talk explains when and why experimental methods need to complement familiar armchair methods of argument analysis; it reviews methods from psycholinguistics that can be recruited for the purpose, and it demonstrates their philosophical application. To do so, the talk reviews experiments on stereotypical inferences that have documented a bias in polysemy comprehension and helped expose previously overlooked fallacies in influential arguments from the philosophy of perception. The talk finally points out consequences for the construction of philosophical arguments and for conceptual engineering.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

Zoom registration:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nWPYyR5BR0WdnwQ1PhCnDA

LTT: R. Pennock

Robert Pennock, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, Michigan State University

Curiosity Systematized: Virtue Philosophy of Science and the Philosophy of Mind

ABSTRACT: I have argued for a virtue philosophy of science as a normative reconstruction of the mindset and characteristic practices of scientists—a peculiarly curious population of knowledge-seekers. Arising in relation to the scientific task of discovering the causal structures of the natural world, curiosity and other scientific virtues provide a value structure in relation to which scientists’ practices and methods may be explained, evaluated, and improved. Viewing science as systematized curiosity not only allows us to examine some old philosophical issues in a new light, but also opens interesting new lines and modes of inquiry, including what may be thought of as experimental epistemology. In this talk, I’ll briefly review a few of the elements of this vocational virtue account of science and then highlight a few connections between it and some broader issues in cognitive science and philosophy of mind, with special mention of my debts to Sellars, Salmon, and Simon.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Shoshi Burd-Baugh (shoshi.burdbaugh@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

Zoom registration:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SNrIQe5WRw6EkReQljDlrw

LTT: R. Batterman

Robert Batterman, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh

Mesoscale Models and Many-Body Physics

ABSTRACT:  What is the best way to study the bulk behavior of many-body systems? A natural, common sentiment among philosophers and physicists is to take a foundational perspective. Examine the theory that characterizes the interactions among the components of such many-body systems and derive the continuum scale behaviors. This approach serves also to reduce, in effect, the continuum theories (Navier-Stokes, Navier-Cauchy) to more fundamental lower scale theories. The hope would be that in so doing we would also be able to explain the relative autonomy of those continuum theories from the lower scale more fundamental details. After all, the continuum theories do not recognize any structure whatsoever below continuum scales.

I argue that this reductionist approach is not fruitful and cannot explain the relative autonomy/universality of the continuum theories—theories that continue to be used in engineering contexts. Instead, I describe an approach that appeals to order parameters and material parameters understood to be defined at mesoscales. That is, we need to treat order parameters and material parameters as natural kinds that live at mesoscales in between the continuum and the atomic scales.  This approach is natural from the perspective of condensed matter physics and materials science.  It is not new and has its origins in (quantum) field theoretic approaches to many-body systems developed by Schwinger, Martin, and Kadanoff, among others.  It reflects a widespread methodology that has almost completely been ignored by philosophers of science. A key aspect of arguing for the naturalness of such mesoscale parameters is provided by the Fluctuation-Dissipation theorem of statistical mechanics.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you prefer to watch on Zoom, please register in advance here:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZJycPQjnRMuk1vP1x8UHsA

LTT: N. Rescher

Nicholas Rescher, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh

A Fallen Branch from the Tree of Knowledge: The Failure of Futurology.

ABSTRACT:  The talk will examine the futurology bubble of the 1950-1980 era, and considers the reasons for its rise and demise.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you prefer to watch on Zoom, please register in advance here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_CBgYdkXeT4-vSK_7RsHTJg

FFF: N. Weinberger

Featured Former Fellow Lunchtime Talk: Naftali Weinberger, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy

Signal Manipulation and the Causal Analysis of Racial Discrimination

ABSTRACT: Discrimination is, in part, a causal concept. To say that an individual was discriminated against based on race entails that her race made a difference to how she was treated. Yet demographic variables such as race elude standard causal analyses. Whereas one typically tests causal claims by manipulating one feature of an experimental setup while keeping others fixed, it is unclear whether one can sensibly talk of changing an individual’s race in isolation from her other properties. Those seeking to address this problem face a dilemma of either adopting more limited conceptualizations of race that allow it to be manipulated or more sociologically sophisticated ones on which it cannot be. To resolve this dilemma, I develop the signal manipulation approach. On this approach, one tests for discrimination not by manipulating race itself, but rather by manipulating the signals by which race influences discriminatory behaviors. I argue that my proposal is able to account for audit studies of discrimination better than alternative proposals and that it is compatible with understanding race as socially constructed. Additionally, the proposal helps differentiate between the cases where it is and is not fruitful to model race causally.

This will be an online-only event and registration is required.  Register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UbFcyFpTTQW0ReTKG6LXeg

LTT: C. Jacobs

Caspar Jacobs, Dept. of HPS, University of Pittsburgh

Are Mass Scalings Symmetries of Newtonian Mechanics?

ABSTRACT: There has been some recent debate over whether mass scalings – uniform scalings of all particle masses – are symmetries of Newtonian mechanics. The brief answer is that this depends on whether one also inversely scales G, the gravitational constant. If one does so, then the decrease in gravitational strength compensates for the increase in particle masses. However, it is unclear what the gravitational constant is, and hence what it means to change its value. Is G a parameter in the laws, or a property of the world? Is it fixed across physical possibilities, or can it have different values? I will develop an account of constants such as G as ‘links’ between the values of quantities with different dimensions. Based on this account, I will argue that the possibility of G-scalings depends on whether one is an anti-quidditist about determinate quantities or not.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you prefer to watch on Zoom, please register in advance here:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_3mgPjrJFQn6GCLCl02NEJA

LTT: E. Machery

Edouard Machery, Distinguished Professor of HPS, University of Pittsburgh

Formal Modeling in Philosophy of Science – Let’s be realistic!

ABSTRACT: In recent years, formal models have become increasingly important in philosophy of science, particularly among social epistemologists. They have also become an important component of metascience. This talk will argue that formal modelers in philosophy have been insufficiently concerned with grounding their modeling in empirical evidence, limiting themselves to interesting, but not always illuminating, possible models. To fulfill its promises, the formal revolution must be accompanied by an empirical turn.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you prefer to watch on Zoom, please register in advance here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kFbgiYLaS6-EdhnrRea1Qg

FFF: E. Curiel

Featured Former Fellow Lunchtime Talk: Erik Curiel, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy

This will be an online event.

Math Does Not Represent

ABSTRACT:  On the standard—almost universally (albeit often only implicitly) accepted—picture of the relation of mathematics in a physical theory to the world, mathematical entities represent physical entities, mathematical structures represent physical structures, and so on.  The relation of representation is—again, almost universally, often implicitly—taken to be one of a designative, depictive or verisimilitudinous character.  I first present eight problems for this standard picture, which I consider damning.  I conclude that math does not represent, at least not in any standard sense from formal semantics, philosophical logic or ontology, nor even in any sense based on more informal ideas such as similarity.  The essential relation to study to comprehend the nature of physical theories and to understand the structure and character of our knowledge in physics is that between our concepts and the world, something I argue to be very like a Peircean symbol.  Mathematics provides us a wealth of different tools to use in order to bring our concepts and the world into contact (and that itself in a number of different ways), nothing more, nothing less.  Some of those tools function in ways that superficially resemble standard ideas of representation, even though they are nothing like it in any important sense; others do not.  I conclude with a few consequences of this view for the epistemology of science and for the numbingly endless debates about realism.

Register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SGyslNXrSbCbDESWBcq64g

LTT: A. Beavers

This talk has been moved to online-only. 

Anthony Beavers, University of Evansville, Center Visiting Fellow

Concerning a Machine Command Theory of Ethics

ABSTRACT: In this presentation on meta-ethics, I will consider the possibility of a Machine Command Theory (MCT) of ethics that may allow an artificial intelligence to outperform conventional moral theories in determining and promulgating moral rules. I will also address why research in this direction is urgent, morally practical, and possibly even morally obligatory. I will do so by presenting the path that led me, first, to being worried about the harm that moral machines might do to conventional ethics to thinking, as I do now, that such machines might prove morally necessary.

 

Watch on Zoom, please register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_MQ5vbxPLQPeOx4rQpJvG7A

LTT: S. DeDeo

Simon DeDeo, Carnegie Mellon/Santa Fe Institute

Consilience and Epistemic Values in the Royal Society

ABSTRACT:  Consilience, the idea that scientific knowledge should draw together disparate phenomena into common frameworks, is a widely accepted value in contemporary science. Little is known, however, about how and when this value first appeared in practice. Using the full-text archives of the world’s first scientific journal, the Philosophical Transactions of London’s Royal Society, from its beginning in 1665, to 1869, we show how these new norms of explanation emerged in three distinct epochs of scientific research. A pre-modern phase, where topics are taken up in an eclectic and unsystematic fashion, is followed by an “Enlightenment” phase, beginning in the mid-18th Century, marked by the emergence of selection for consilience and the drawing together of previously-distinct fields of inquiry. This is followed by a 19th Century consolidation phase that refined and pruned the conceptual network of the Enlightenment phase and led to the proto-disciplines of the contemporary era. Our results reveal not only the role of consilience in the early history of science, but show how it came in stages, and how the process had begun decades before these values were widely articulated.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you prefer to watch on Zoom, please register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_nUKERYA9SoKRLMXxBu8iNA

LTT: M. Parker

Matthew Parker, University of Western Ontario, Center Visiting Fellow

What Counts as Evidence in a Vast Universe?

ABSTRACT:  Ziv has a psychological theory and claims that an experiment has confirmed it.  Nick says this is irrelevant; the universe is so big that someone was bound to make the same observation even if the theory is false.  To give the result teeth, he says, Ziv must assert that they (Ziv) observed it and that they are a randomly chosen observer in the universe.  But do we really need to worry about what distant beings observe, just to do science on Earth?  I will argue we do not, neither in psychology nor cosmology, if we appropriately construe what our evidence is about and what our theories predict.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you prefer to watch on Zoom, please register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_tP_2rLlBRbKb-ll-RZLBpQ

LTT: N. Huggett

Nick Huggett, LAS Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of Illinois at Chicago

Quantum Gravity on a Tabletop?

ABSTRACT: The characteristic – Planck – energy scale of quantum gravity is utterly beyond current technology, making experimental access to the relevant physics apparently impossible. Nevertheless, low energy experiments linking gravity and the quantum have been undertaken: the Page and Geilker quantum Cavendish experiment, and the Colella-Overhauser-Werner neutron interferometry experiment, say. However, neither probes states in which gravity remains in a coherent quantum superposition – unlike recent proposals that have created considerable interest among physicists. In essence, if two initially unentangled systems interacting solely via gravity become entangled, then, according to a simple theorem of quantum mechanics, gravity must quantum. Clearly there are formidable challenges to creating such a system, but remarkably, tabletop technology into the gravitational fields of very small bodies has advanced to the point that such an experiment might be feasible in the next several years. In this talk I will explain the proposal and what it aims to show, highlighting the important ways in which it is theory-laden. (Drawn from joint work with Niels Linnemann and Mike Schneider.)

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you prefer to watch on Zoom, please register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_4fJS8BW3S1yiKcdqRzmjNA

LTT: S. Varga

Somogy Varga, Aarhus University, Center Visiting Scholar

The Aim of Medicine

ABSTRACT: Recent debates about the scope and societal role of medicine raise fundamental questions about its aim. The main task of the talk is to contribute to clarifying this issue. I start by outlining the idea medicine deploys a particular kind of understanding. Then, I explore the initially plausible proposal according to which medicine is pathocentric, aiming to restore the health of individuals by curing disease. Discussing and rejecting this as well as competing proposals, I argue that medicine is but sanocentric, with the final aim to enhance autonomy. I close by considering the objection that the proposed view is overly permissive and allows many highly controversial procedures as legitimate parts of medicine.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you prefer to watch on Zoom, please register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_sCnjPh9MTuOLg3iJp5phxQ

LTT: B. McLoone

Brian McLoone, Higher School Economics, Center Visiting Fellow

How Should We Think about Models with Impossible Assumptions?

ABSTRACT: This talk will be about complications that emerge when one renders a scientific model with an impossible assumption as a counterfactual. The talk will touch on a variety of topics, such as the nature of (im)possibility, the vacuity thesis (whose correctness I argue against), impossible worlds (whose utility I argue for), and it will draw on some completed but unpublished experimental work on how scientists reason from assumptions that they deem to be impossible.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you’d prefer to watch online, please register here:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_hnkLi82VRsOclftS_CT6-Q

FFF: Y. Benetreau-Dupin

Featured Former Fellow Lunchtime Talk: Yann Benetreau-Dupin, University of Western Ontario

This will be an online event.

Is Reading Peer Review a Good Idea?

ABSTRACT:  After a few years as a full-time staff editor for the large, multidisciplinary, open-access journal PLOS ONE (Public Library of Science), I wonder if leaving academic philosophy to read peer-review for a living was such a great idea. I will discuss this journal’s unusual approach to peer-review and to what extent it tackles biases and undesirable incentives that affect authors, reviewers, academia at large, and the public, as well as some criticisms against the very existence of peer-reviewed publishing.

Register here:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_-LKYmUFsQE6BWX5dlISuLg

LTT: H. Cheon

Hyundeuk Cheon, Seoul National University, Center Visiting Fellow

Explicating the Principle of Explicability

ABSTRACT: In this talk, I attempt to explicate the principle of explicability for artificial intelligence (AI). While there is widespread consensus that AI needs to be explicable (expressed by different terms such as explainability, interpretability, transparency, or accountability), there are unresolved issues on WHY, WHO(WHOM), and WHAT of the explicability principle. Following Floridi and colleagues, I take the principle of explicability as incorporating both the epistemological sense of intelligibility and the ethical sense of accountability. The following questions will be addressed: what it is for, whom AI is explicable to, what kinds of explanation is demanded by the principle. I claim that the explicability is mainly for the autonomy of algorithm-users as rational decision-makers and trust of algorithm-patients in algorithms and their results. Thus, AI needs to be explicable to algorithm-users as well as to algorithm-patients. To satisfy the intelligibility, we call for a causal explanation of a particular outcome, which can be regarded as giving reasons. To be accountable, the explanation has to be justified. Finally, I will respond to the skepticism about the applicability of the principle.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you’d prefer to watch online, please register here:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_06Nu08_BTViLRmxZpDXhVw

LTT: H. Douglas

Heather Douglas, Michigan State, Center Senior Fellow

Rethinking the Social Contract for Science

ABSTRACT: The dominant way of thinking about the relationship between science and society has been a “social contract” that grew out of the debates about science funding in the post-WWII US. This social contract presumed that the most public good would come from a “free play of free intellects” in science, supported by the public purse. In exchange for public funds and support, scientists would produce knowledge that would lead to public good, through good advice given by independent experts and through the application of science (either in the military or in the consumer realm, following the linear model for science funding). The job of the scientist was to accept monetary support, do their best scientific work, and provide advice when called; public good would follow. Unfortunately, this conceptual model for the relationship between science and society showed signs of strain by 1980s and has proven deeply inadequate in recent decades. I will review this history before turning to the question of what should replace the social contract for science. I will argue that the idea of a contract between science and society suggests two independent parties coming to an agreement for an exchange. But science is not, and never has been, independent of the society in which it functions. So what norms should structure the policies and expectations around science in society? I will illustrate what answering this question fully would look like with an examination of alternative sets of norms for science advising and science funding.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you’d prefer to watch online, please register here:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_bqltLWfQSFGzbHEfxXwLOw

LTT: K. Werner

Konrad Werner, University of Warsaw, Poland

Defining Institutions: A Shared Objective of the Social and Cognitive Sciences

ABSTRACT: There is consensus in the field of economics (economic history) and the social sciences more generally that institutions matter significantly when it comes to why certain nations, societies or states prosper while others don’t. However, there is no agreement as to what institutions themselves are, which not only hinders our understanding of what the above statement actually implies, but also prevents its practical implementation. I would like to show that how we define institutions determines how another, more practical question is to be answered – namely, what a country should do to become richer. That said, I will argue that the way one thinks of institutions hinges, among other things, on the way one thinks of cognition. Finally, I would like to speculate on how our understanding of institutions changes once we shift from the more or less traditional representationalist account to the emergent embodied cognition paradigm. From the perspective of the philosophy of science, all these considerations are supposed to illustrate the necessary interdisciplinarity of the institutional approach.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you’d prefer to watch online, please register here:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HVwaliAoR1SdfOM_WIQf8A

LTT: A. Mohseni

Aydin Mohseni, UC Irvine, Center Post-Doc Fellow

HARKing: from Misdiagnosis to Misprescription

ABSTRACT: The practice of HARKing—hypothesizing after results are known—is commonly maligned as undermining the reliability of scientific findings. There are several accounts in the literature as to why HARKing undermines the reliability of findings. We argue that none of these is right and that the correct account is a Bayesian one. HARKing can indeed decrease the reliability of scientific findings, but it can also increase it. Which effect HARKing produces depends on the difference of the prior odds of hypotheses characteristically selected ex ante and ex post to observing data. Further, we show how misdiagnosis of HARKing can lead to misprescription in the context of the replication crisis.

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.

If you prefer to watch online, please register here:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_wtAyoOV_RYyKh8I8AczLnA

FFF: P. Vickers

Identifying Future-Proof Science

Featured Former Fellow Lunchtime Talk: Peter Vickers, Durham University

This will be an online event.  Register here: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_HRqsVLWNS-u0Q_2puihG_Q

 

ABSTRACT: My forthcoming book Identifying Future-Proof Science argues that we can confidently identify many scientific claims that are future-proof: they will last forever (so long as science continues). Examples include the evolution of human beings from fish, and the fact that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. But how should we go about identifying future-proof science? This appears to be a new question for philosophers of science, and not an unimportant one. It is argued that the best way to identify future-proof science is to avoid any attempt to analyse the relevant first-order scientific evidence, instead focusing purely on second-order evidence. Specifically, a scientific claim is future-proof when the relevant scientific community is large, international, and diverse, and at least 95% of that community would describe the claim as a ‘scientific fact’. In the entire history of science, no claim meeting these criteria has ever been overturned, despite enormous opportunity for that to happen (were it ever going to happen). There are important consequences for school education: If this is indeed the way to identify future-proof science, then the vast majority of school-leavers will have hardly any of the requisite skills, since schools systems around the world completely neglect to teach children how to judge the second-order evidence for scientific claims.

LTT: B. Karlan

Human Achievement and Artificial Intelligence

Brett Karlan, University of Pittsburgh, HPS

ABSTRACT: Shortly after the deep neural network AlphaGo defeated Go grandmaster Lee Sedol in a series of matches in 2016, Sedol announced his retirement from professional Go. In his retirement announcement, Sedol expressed a sentiment many others have echoed about the encroachment of AI technologies into spaces of important human value, arguing that the success of AlphaGo made it pointless for human beings to continue trying to be perform at high levels in Go. In this paper, I ask: is this worry justified? What is valuable about difficult human achievement, and why might such value be threatened by superhuman performance levels of AI technologies in those areas? I argue that, on several plausible accounts of the value of achievement, Sedol’s worries are misplaced. Much like a sprinter’s achievement are not threatened by the performance of a supersonic jet, human cognitive achievements are similarly insulated from losing most of their value in an AI-dominated future. Nevertheless, the threat seems to be psychologically salient to many, and this fact means some aspects of the theory of human achievement might have to develop a self-effacing character. I show how this can be done in this paper, as well as try to catalogue more thoroughly the underlying sources of this (what I think of as an ultimately misplaced) worry.

You have the option to attend in person, watch a YouTube livestream, or watch through Zoom.

The Zoom registration link is:  https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rEwkdh9qTTyhTzl5Gh5BEQ

Please Note: Non-Pitt individuals who want to attend our in-person talks must send an email in advance to Katie Labuda (kathleenlabuda@pitt.edu) requesting Guest Building Access, or you will not be able to enter the Cathedral of Learning.