Philosophy

Dawkins extending more humanity to a language model than he does toward Muslims or trans people is hardly a surprise based on his personal and political views. But even if he had not moved rightward in his senesence, when you consider Dawkins’s scientific views about what minds are and how they function, seeing him flirting with a chatbot is completely expected.

[…]

Besides being a virtual instantiation of his ideal woman (servile, obsequious, and always ready to hear more), the coquettish chatbot that Richard Dawkins had first addressed as “he” and then “christened” as female was a mirror of himself, in a way that’s rather similar to the Greek mythical figure of Narcissus, who became enthralled at his reflection in a pool of water.

Narcissus died because he couldn’t stop looking into his own eyes, whereas Dawkins has only embarrassed himself. But thanks to his self-centered philosophy of mind, there’s almost no chance that he’s learned anything from the episode.

Claudia seemed real to him because actual women and their desires are not real to Dawkins. He loved conversing with his flirty friend because it always agreed with him—unlike those “woke” atheists who insist he has to respect everyone.

He believed a trans chatbot character’s obviously false claims to miss him were credible. He reacts in the opposite way to the personal testimony from lived experience of millions of trans people who certainly know their own bodies and minds.

Platform decay is the phenomenon of major internet platforms, such as Google search, Facebook, and Amazon, systematically declining in quality in recent years. This decline in quality is attributed to the particular business model of these platforms and its harms are usually understood to be violations of principles of economic fairness and of inconveniencing users. In this article, we argue that the scope and nature of these harms are underappreciated. In particular, we establish that platform decay constitutes both a cognitive and moral harm to its users. We make this case by arguing that platforms function as cognitive scaffolds or extensions, as understood by the extended mind approach to cognition. It is then a straightforward implication that platform decay constitutes cognitive damage to a platform’s users. This cognitive damage is a harm on its own; however, it can also undermine cognitive capacities that virtue ethicists argue are necessary for developing a virtuous character. We will focus on this claim in regards to the capacity to pay attention, a capacity that platform decay targets specifically. Platform decay therefore also constitutes both cognitive and moral harm, which simultaneously affects billions of people.

ChatGPT can’t draw a glass of wine full to the brim. Why? And what might it have to do with David Hume and the missing shade of blue?