Chris
@multiplicityct.bsky.social
PhD student in philosophy at the University of Staffordshire. Trustworthy AI, philosophy of trust and reliance, Heidegger, Korsgaard, analytic ethics. Marylander. MA Staffs, MBA Duke. Wittgenstein and Cantor handshake numbers = 3 (via John Conway).
I am almost certainly going to quote this post in the paper I'm writing currently. Fair warning. :-)
February 13, 2026 at 3:15 PM
I am almost certainly going to quote this post in the paper I'm writing currently. Fair warning. :-)
Yep! My 12 yo commented that "this is SUCH a popular song" when it came on a month ago. She was confused when I said, "Uh, yeah...20+ years ago. Great song though!" She had no idea it was a classic, I had no idea middle schoolers were currently aware of it.
February 13, 2026 at 2:22 AM
Yep! My 12 yo commented that "this is SUCH a popular song" when it came on a month ago. She was confused when I said, "Uh, yeah...20+ years ago. Great song though!" She had no idea it was a classic, I had no idea middle schoolers were currently aware of it.
I wonder how that might intersect with the literature on trust. Trust carries no guarantees of fairness, and determining whether trustworthy behavior is self-interested or not is a theme in the literature.
February 12, 2026 at 6:50 PM
I wonder how that might intersect with the literature on trust. Trust carries no guarantees of fairness, and determining whether trustworthy behavior is self-interested or not is a theme in the literature.
I haven't engaged with Nussbaum yet, but I'd be interested in learning more about what you're writing. Korsgaard is important for me, and I've only scratched the surface on animals with her via Sources of Normativity. Looking forward to reading her animal book.
February 12, 2026 at 4:42 PM
I haven't engaged with Nussbaum yet, but I'd be interested in learning more about what you're writing. Korsgaard is important for me, and I've only scratched the surface on animals with her via Sources of Normativity. Looking forward to reading her animal book.
Me, reading philosophy: I love this. It's such a blessing that I get to do this.
Me, writing philosophy: I have made terrible life choices.
Me, writing philosophy: I have made terrible life choices.
Writing is hard, philosophy is awful.
February 12, 2026 at 4:41 PM
Me, reading philosophy: I love this. It's such a blessing that I get to do this.
Me, writing philosophy: I have made terrible life choices.
Me, writing philosophy: I have made terrible life choices.
That might be valuable for me to dig into anyway. I'm interested in a particular paper that gained currency in the robots in healthcare literature. "Ethicswashing" describes what's going on pretty well.
February 12, 2026 at 4:37 PM
That might be valuable for me to dig into anyway. I'm interested in a particular paper that gained currency in the robots in healthcare literature. "Ethicswashing" describes what's going on pretty well.
I think yes, work like this?
Philosophy of archaeology;Philosophy in archaeology
This chapter discusses the philosophy of archaeology. Archaeology crosscuts a number of fields. In some contexts, it is treated as an autonomous disci…
www.sciencedirect.com
February 12, 2026 at 2:24 PM
I think yes, work like this?
Ha! These papers do cite philosophers -- whichever ones are friendly to their arguments. They're really superficial citations in many cases, so it's hard to say this is "influence" for philosophy. The interdisciplinary practice and politics of this fascinates me, though.
February 12, 2026 at 1:59 PM
Ha! These papers do cite philosophers -- whichever ones are friendly to their arguments. They're really superficial citations in many cases, so it's hard to say this is "influence" for philosophy. The interdisciplinary practice and politics of this fascinates me, though.
@sarahwieten.bsky.social Any leads? Seems like there could be a dozen dissertations written on how philosophy, good and bad, influences medical research and practice, but I don't know who these scholars are/were!
February 12, 2026 at 1:46 PM
@sarahwieten.bsky.social Any leads? Seems like there could be a dozen dissertations written on how philosophy, good and bad, influences medical research and practice, but I don't know who these scholars are/were!
Is there a meta-literature on how philosophical arguments are adopted and used in empirical disciplines, especially medicine or technology? It's crazy how quickly bad philosophical arguments get picked up and cited in the lit on robots in healthcare. #philsky
February 12, 2026 at 1:45 PM
Is there a meta-literature on how philosophical arguments are adopted and used in empirical disciplines, especially medicine or technology? It's crazy how quickly bad philosophical arguments get picked up and cited in the lit on robots in healthcare. #philsky
Reposted by Chris
If anything, since moving to a place that specializes in applied philosophy, my tolerance for this has gotten even worse (hence an interaction that caused this complaining). I don't think I should have to constantly contort myself to fit some vision you have in your head of what real philosophy is
February 11, 2026 at 8:13 PM
If anything, since moving to a place that specializes in applied philosophy, my tolerance for this has gotten even worse (hence an interaction that caused this complaining). I don't think I should have to constantly contort myself to fit some vision you have in your head of what real philosophy is
“You took electronics in the 1990s? But that was before the iPhone!” - Our teenager, to my (youthful) wife.
February 10, 2026 at 12:42 AM
“You took electronics in the 1990s? But that was before the iPhone!” - Our teenager, to my (youthful) wife.
Bracketing moral questions as @tedunderwood.com does here seems necessary. An aesthetic reading of our reactions has an important virtue: they reflect a pre-moral process of collective questioning. We don't know quite what AI agents are or could be.
The marionette theater of AI
Is it funny, or painful, when bots talk about their inner lives?
tedunderwood.com
February 9, 2026 at 4:10 PM
Bracketing moral questions as @tedunderwood.com does here seems necessary. An aesthetic reading of our reactions has an important virtue: they reflect a pre-moral process of collective questioning. We don't know quite what AI agents are or could be.
This absolute goober is enjoying the sunshine.
February 9, 2026 at 4:02 PM
This absolute goober is enjoying the sunshine.
Bookmarking. From a quick skim, I think the shift from ethics to aesthetics makes sense.
Well, I went ahead and wrote it. An attempt to work through the discomfort people feel with AI agents on social media by reframing it as an aesthetic problem.
The marionette theater of AI
Is it funny, or painful, when bots talk about their inner lives?
tedunderwood.com
February 9, 2026 at 3:52 AM
Bookmarking. From a quick skim, I think the shift from ethics to aesthetics makes sense.
Our 6 yo is in her Ravens best, rooting for the Seahawks. Don’t question it.
February 9, 2026 at 12:03 AM
Our 6 yo is in her Ravens best, rooting for the Seahawks. Don’t question it.
I saw some talking in @emollick.bsky.social’s LinkedIn comments about a client with a $1M/month token budget. Here I am grinding with my $200/month Claude subscription. 😂
February 7, 2026 at 7:43 PM
I saw some talking in @emollick.bsky.social’s LinkedIn comments about a client with a $1M/month token budget. Here I am grinding with my $200/month Claude subscription. 😂
I love what I do because it requires relentless curiosity but also getting your hands into things. Trying, failing, and recovering over and over is important. But someone needs to give you lots of chances to get your hands on things.
February 7, 2026 at 4:22 AM
I love what I do because it requires relentless curiosity but also getting your hands into things. Trying, failing, and recovering over and over is important. But someone needs to give you lots of chances to get your hands on things.
The short answer is no (not well). The role has transformed from hedgehog to fox. Judgment, smart resource allocation, taking and managing risks, and building relationships more important than ever. And AI will cut off the bottom rungs of the ladder as with other knowledge worker fields.
February 7, 2026 at 4:20 AM
The short answer is no (not well). The role has transformed from hedgehog to fox. Judgment, smart resource allocation, taking and managing risks, and building relationships more important than ever. And AI will cut off the bottom rungs of the ladder as with other knowledge worker fields.
I’m like those people who are perpetually going to write a novel someday, except with software projects. This is so liberating.
February 7, 2026 at 2:14 AM
I’m like those people who are perpetually going to write a novel someday, except with software projects. This is so liberating.
But I used to be a software developer! I mean, a really really mediocre one. But still! I guess I’m proving your point. ;-)
February 7, 2026 at 2:11 AM
But I used to be a software developer! I mean, a really really mediocre one. But still! I guess I’m proving your point. ;-)
I just shipped an internal software tool to our team that would have taken me a month before Claude Code. I spent maybe half my spare time over the last week on it. Wild stuff.
February 6, 2026 at 11:09 PM
I just shipped an internal software tool to our team that would have taken me a month before Claude Code. I spent maybe half my spare time over the last week on it. Wild stuff.
Reposted by Chris
A general thought, as I work on revisions to a paper: I do think this holds up, and it's not that Gemini/etc. isn't good at doing exactly what it's trained to do. It's that, at least in part, Gemini has nothing to say. It makes no arguments, no claims, nothing that gives food for thought.
The reports I get from Gemini Deep Research are not quite that. They...look like reports. And I can make use of them because I can do some kind of discernment. But I'm not sure it's RLHF so much as: LLMs don't make arguments. They produce things that look like arguments. There is a difference here.
February 6, 2026 at 5:46 PM
A general thought, as I work on revisions to a paper: I do think this holds up, and it's not that Gemini/etc. isn't good at doing exactly what it's trained to do. It's that, at least in part, Gemini has nothing to say. It makes no arguments, no claims, nothing that gives food for thought.
Reposted by Chris
That is to say, it’s a tricky problem but not more difficult than other things they do. And I think this falls squarely on the companies providing these services to make sure their tools are good at this
January 25, 2026 at 8:20 PM
That is to say, it’s a tricky problem but not more difficult than other things they do. And I think this falls squarely on the companies providing these services to make sure their tools are good at this