Currently an assistant professor of philo at U of Texas - Arlington, where I work on ethics & social agency related to Social/Relational AI systems.
Frege's armchair.
Joined June 2009
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This is a hot topic now. I've written about this in the context of social relationships with AI and how we should think about the "anthro-problem." Read the preprint here, and always happy to get any feedback. philsci-archive.pitt.edu/cgi…
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics. This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects.
Instead, explain what a system does, how well it performs, who built it and who could be affected by it.
apnews.com/article/openai-sa…
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Using AI is not permitted for precisely those things I’m skilled at and get social status from, fine otherwise.
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I was a combat soldier in an elite IDF unit. I served in the West Bank and witnessed firsthand how settlers could do whatever they wanted with impunity.
Today I’m the Executive Director of ״Breaking the Silence״ an organization that has collected thousands of testimonies from Israeli soldiers over the past two decades.
And I can say with certainty that this statement by IDF spokesperson is a lie. The IDF is not trying to stop Jewish terrorism in the occupied territories. In fact, it protects Jewish terrorists and arms them with US-made M16 rifles.
If the IDF genuinely wanted to stop Jewish terrorism, the Chief of Staff could simply order the 30,000 soldiers stationed in the West Bank to carry out arrests. It’s that simple.
Syed retweeted
To be clear, the only reason I was able to reach Heidi was because young Palestinians provided cover with rocks against machine-gun- and tear-gas-wielding settlers and soldiers. It’s those kids, not the settler terrorists, who the IDF was hunting after the attack.
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Friends and readers: I have cancer.
The type of cancer is not yet fully confirmed, but all signs point toward kidney cancer that has spread to my hips, back, and pleura. On the bright side, all my blood tests so far are normal, suggesting that the cancer is moving slowly, 1/6
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Completely out of control. Backed by the IDF. Enabled by 🇺🇸 taxpayers
As a Palestinian family tries to reach their home in the West Bank, young Israeli settlers known as Hilltop Youth confront them. One settler headbutts Palestinian local Hassan Faraj in the face. Another blow fractures his nose.
Editor's note: In compliance with Israeli law, 60 Minutes is obscuring the faces of underage participants in these actions. cbsn.ws/4ybFbox
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I've teased this before, but it's coming soon: Oxford Studies in Philosophy of AI and Computing. Call for papers out in a couple of weeks. It's going to be awesome. Tell your (philosophy) friends.
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Seeing it with my own eyes was nuts..
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'Targeting women and children' • Israeli professor indicted for plotting mass-casualty terror attacks on Arabs haaretz.com/israel-news/isra…
Conceptual clarity is more important than ever. I'm guessing Rep. Lieu doesn't mean "arbitrary," but rather "probalistic/stochastic"? Otherwise, does that imply that human "output" is arbitrary, and that the arbitrariness is a sign of consciousness?
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“Only democracy in the Middle East” has 2 sets of speech rules: one for Jews and one for Palestinians.
In English, we call this Apartheid. Not so complicated after all.
Supreme Court disqualifying Balad chief sets different rules for Arabs, Jews haaretz.com/israel-news/elec…
Yup. I had this thought the other day. It’s difficult to take “AI is conscious” and “welfare,” seriously when there are conscious animals being killed and tortured daily.
If AI systems are conscious or are "very close," can one list the AI model one works with as a co-author or as a colleague with whom one co-wrote the paper when submitting to journals without issue? Authorship is the least we can offer AI, no? #AGI #consciousness #AIwelfare
Syed retweeted
İyi bak Gazzeli çocuğa, ey gafil nefis!
Koca bir dünyada çaresiz bıraktığın bu mazluma bak.
Ağlamaktan, açlıktan, yalnızlıktan ve korkudan bitap düşüp çaresizce etrafına bakındıktan sonra yüzünü toprağa dönen o çocuğa bak.
This arms race is silly. It’s like trying to police armors and weapons.
“My armor (detectors) stops the projectile (AI text)”
“Ok I’ll make a different projectile.”
Btw, the people in position of authority putting up armors are temp, the next person might scrap your armor.
Syed retweeted
Israel has revoked the aliyah eligibility of two young Jewish activists, one British and one American, who have worked to protect Palestinian communities in the West Bank from settler and military violence. These are the first known cases in which the authorities appear to be violating the Law of Return, which grants every Jew the right to immigrate to Israel.
🔗haaretz.com/israel-news/2026…
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NeurIPS / Claude rejected our paper "Life After Benchmark Saturation" but we continue to think it is an important contribution to evaluation science, so we hope you check it out here! arxiv.org/abs/2606.26158
What is the “core” of a model?