Sebastian Watzl

and don't make the attention market problems about social media. It's a lot deeper than that.

So, should we maybe not leave all attention direction to the market?

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

The only thing I have found Chatbots to be somewhat useful for is as brainstorming devices, to get me to expand and focus what to think about. But if that is what those makers of the chatbots in a position of a lot of power - you know I have a thing about that...

I just think Trump understands Mamdani is not someone he wants to tangle with. Too smart, too charismatic, too New York, too straightforward, too young. Easier targets elsewhere, like everyone who works for him and most of Congress. (1/2)

Trump is really good at attentional landscaping (sorry to pluck our term again) and so is Mandami. It is very interesting that Trump is, I think, very conscious of the power of this capacity, and admires it also in others. (not sure what follows)

Well, thank you and your students. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot!

well.... yes.🙂

I really didn't want to think more about LLMs but, as always, you focus on the right issue and do it so well that I now have think about it. (I was pretty sure that there are no unified agents we talk to here. Why do you force me to think?)

Roughly: in distraction processing some information interferes with task performance. If processing that information is more valuable than performance of the task, then distraction is valuable. I just uploaded the files on my website, if you wanna have a look www.sebastianwatzl.com

It's world philosophy day: talked already to people in Portugal about why distraction need not be such a bad thing. Soon speaking with @floresophize.bsky.social and her group about the attention market. I do like our philosophy world sometimes!

my man.

There is no man made climate change. There is rich made climate change. „The richest 0.1% produces more carbon pollution in a day than the poorest 50% emit all year“

Now reflect on why we are not thinking more about how the rich are destroying the world

policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/cl...

Bildschirmzeit von Kindern • Z+ Empfehlung: Tut ihnen das nicht an! Studien zeigen: Bildschirmzeit schadet kleinen Kindern. Und trotzdem geben Eltern schon Ein- und Zweijährigen regelmäßig das Handy – mit drastischen Konsequenzen.

Seltsam: die angeführten Studien handeln eigentlich davon wie die Bildschirmzeit **der Eltern** den Kindern schadet - weil das Sozialverhalten **der Eltern** gestört ist. Vielleicht handelt das Problem nicht von Kindern sondern von 'Technoference" in unserem **Leben**? www.zeit.de/2025/48/bild...

Hope it's interesting!

The attention market—and what is wrong with it - Philosophical Studies Attention is described as a “scarce commodity” that is traded in “a marketplace.” This, it is further claimed, contributes to a “widespread sense of attentional crisis.” But is there really an attenti...

I can't offer good beer or music, but maybe you're interested in our paper that just came out: link.springer.com/article/10.1... We try to keep it simple on the economics side since we wanted to get to some of the ethics issues. (the paper was finished before the Loewenstein and Wojtowitcz came out)

Our argument is that too much external influence or control that a subject cannot adequately control in turn undermines our autonomy. The moral problem of the attention market in some way is like the moral problem of duress or coercion. Talk about stress/overuse and so is all irrelevant.

Stress has nothing to do with our argument. We don't even mention the word in the paper.

But not all markets are unproblematic: think of drug markets and prostitution. The attention is like that, we argue. It is a market in external influence. At at scale, it threatens to undermine a self-determined life. Respect for individual freedom entails, at least, heavy regulations. 4/4

What’s wrong with that? Lots of complaint are too quick. As a market, the attention market is a voluntary transaction. Doesn’t respect for individual freedom entail that if a person wants free email more than control over their attentional landscape, no one has the right to deny them that wish? 3/4

The attention market we argue sells access to attention landscaping. It's is a bit like the labor market. In one, people exchange control over the capacities for work for a salary. In the other, people exchange control over the environment that affects their attention to access services. 2/4

@chrislhayes.bsky.social , @superwuster.bsky.social and others talk about the commodification of attention. But many of us on the academic side of attention were thinking: really? And sure: lots of deep problems, but are they due to the commodification of attention ? So, we tried to find out … 1/4

The attention market—and what is wrong with it - Philosophical Studies Attention is described as a “scarce commodity” that is traded in “a marketplace.” This, it is further claimed, contributes to a “widespread sense of attentional crisis.” But is there really an attenti...

What is this ‘attention economy’? Is there really a market where people buy and sell human attention? If so, what’s wrong with that? New paper by Katharine Browne and me that argues: yes, there is an attention market and yes, there is something wrong with it. 🧵
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

That's helpful. Thanks!

Couldn't there be a bunch of different, slightly related phenomena? If there was a distinctive soclal norm for it, then it would be interesting, but then why not directly pick it as 'the speech act that is governed by THIS norm'. Somehow I'm still confused... 2/2

I see. From an outsider's perspective, it's not entirely obvious to me in what sense there is something 'to give an account of' here, something like a natural kind of social interaction that one can get right. 1/2

How is the proof not testimony? (seems to be testimony on the Graham and Lackey accounts) (at least if it is communicated to someone, like written down or uttered in a way that's intended for someone to pay attention to)

Thanks for the references! (I am actually new to this game)

(background: communication isn't defined as information exchange; it's a way of ostensively re-directing attention that can be used to exchange information but also for many other things; see Jessica Keiser's work, Scott-Phillips and Heintz, or Sperber and Wilson)

So, the view I sort of like: communication is governed by lots of social norms. The knowledge norm is one of them. In some social circumstances that norm is very powerful, under others it is not. The question: what social circumstances foreground the knowledge norm over other norms?

I take it as obvious that we often do not hold others to the standard of knowledge when we communicate in declarative sentences. What communication is governed by it? My sense: S testifies/reports that p iff S engages in a speech act A that communicates p and A is governed by the knowledge norm.

Am I reporting that p if I say 'it's good to see you'?