Ramón Alvarado

Beyond ecstatic to be able to put together this lineup for our little workshop on the Philosophy of Computational Methods in Science.

#philsci

I meant to say more. There was a higher epistemic status given to the results of those— rare people —that could do astronomy (observations and calculations) and be excellent at drawing. This was because they would have one less mediator between the phenomena and the image.

The role of images and of image mediation was very well understood in the philosophy of astronomy since the days of Galileo and Kepler.

#philsci

(WSJ) -- China's state-sponsored hackers used artificial intelligence technology from Anthropic to automate break-ins of major corporations and foreign governments during a September hacking campaign, the company said Thursday.

@wsj.com
www.wsj.com/tech/ai/chin...

I find “conventional view” to be much more hurtful, yet professional.

It took a while for philosophers of mind to get into the new AI game. Regrettably, they seem to be playing the PR game with outdated terms like “consciousness”. Given the popular appeal of this strategy, I foresee years of unbearable and retrograde debate for philosophy of AI.

#philtech #AIethics

That last sentence hit hard. What a piece of 21st century art!

"Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross: The Social Network" album cover art by Rob Sheridan, 2010. A glitched image of Jesse Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg from the film. Full gallery and commentary at https://www.patreon.com/posts/41677761

Artwork by Rob Sheridan from the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross soundtrack album "The Social Network." Digitally corrupted still from the film. Full gallery and commentary at https://www.patreon.com/posts/41677761

Artwork by Rob Sheridan from the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross soundtrack album "The Social Network." Digitally corrupted still from the film. Full gallery and commentary at https://www.patreon.com/posts/41677761

Artwork by Rob Sheridan from the Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross soundtrack album "The Social Network." Digitally corrupted still from the film. Full gallery and commentary at https://www.patreon.com/posts/41677761

David Fincher's THE SOCIAL NETWORK, and Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross's Oscar-winning score, turned 15 years old this fall. Here's some of my artwork for the album, created by manually corrupting images from the film by editing their raw hex data in a text editor, damaging them from the inside. 1/

Rejoinder: Let Us Rescue Intelligence from Anti-Human AI

A truly fantastic piece Ramon, I enjoyed the exchange enormously and argued back for the need to rescue intelligence from anti-human AI, it’s too important a notion to both human and non-human interactions with the world - see this rejoinder hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/c5hq3by1.... #philsci

I really enjoyed the rejoinder, Sabina, it signals a longer and important conversation. The interrogation and/or the rescuing of intelligence will be one of the most important (and fundamental) debates in our fields ( #philtech #philsci and #AIethics). Long overdue.

Artifactual Epistemology and Environmental Intelligence

🚨New paper! My response to @sabinaleonelli.bsky.social’s Environmental Intelligence. In short: maybe we should stop using ‘intelligence’ altogether and recognize these technical artifacts as what they are: epistemic technologies with new and distinct affordances.

#AIEthics #Philsci #Philtech

Making flour tortillas at home is weird because—despite being so simple, making them makes me feel like I’ve achieved whatever level of enlightenment Sor Juana Inez de La Cruz wanted Aristotle to be at when she suggested he should’ve spent more time in the kitchen.
#philsci

I’m not sure that we did. Maybe in public discourse, but in scientific practice all are at play and pretty much on equal footing. This is even more evident in software-intensive sciences.

Strolling through the Stuttgart forest talking to atmospheric scientist, physicists, engineers, computer and data scientist about Machine Learning in science.

Very interesting developments and considerations as we pondered discovery, knowledge transfer, and artifactual epistemology.

#philsci

Only 2 tired alternatives were given. I suggested an example of a 3rd: a bunch of philosophers and artist of computational methods that understand the tech so well they can “take it apart” and “mod” it to appropriate it beyond intended design. Critical thinking IS what enables this alternative.

Download open source models, fine tune them or untune them with weird data, explore glitches and capabilities. Create local agents for garage projects, or like my friends say: make them feral.

#philtech #AIethics

I found hanging out with artists and creatives helps transcend the whole “use or refuse” dichotomy and discourse. Sooo many interesting ways to appropriate this technology and push its limits and capabilities to take it into fascinating directions. Very similar to street art.

#philtech #aiethics

I found that hanging out with artists and creatives helps transcend the whole “use or refuse” dichotomy and discourse. There are so many interesting and cool ways to appropriate this technology and push its limits and capabilities to take it into fascinating directions. Very similar to street art.

Navigating the Bermuda Triangle of Knowledge Infusion, Explainability, and Scientific Discovery | Cluster of Excellence SimTech Stuttgart Center for Simulation Science | University of Stuttgart 07 - 10 October 2025

Excited to be a keynote here. Talking about scientific discovery, serendipity and machine learning.

www.simtech.uni-stuttgart.de/communicatio...

#philsci

Flash trip back to Stuttgart to give a keynote on AI and scientific discovery. I’m really looking forward to the written version of this paper on serendipity, science, and computational methods. Hopefully by the end of Fall I’ll compile all the feedback from this year.

#philsci

Should we replace radiologists with deep learning? Pigeons, error and trust in medical AI The sudden rise in the ability of machine learning methodology, such as deep neural networks, to identify and predict with great accuracy instances of malignant cell growth from radiological images h...

Speaking of Hinton, hate to say I told you so…

Should we replace radiologists with deep learning? Pigeons, error and trust in medical AI - Alvarado - 2022 - Bioethics.

#AI #AIethics #Philtech

Some of the knee-jerk resistance to understand the virtues and benefits of Artificial agents and caregivers is heavily culturally biased. In this paper, @smusab.bsky.social provides a broader #AIethics perspective. This is an excellent contribution to an otherwise stagnated discourse.

It’s pretty straightforwardly stated multiple times in the Novum Organon.

I would strongly resist this reading. Although American pragmatism got a lot from Bacon and Bacon emphasized ‘useful’ outcomes from inquiry, he nevertheless was really critical of the naive empiricism and useful haste of the alchemist. His view of Truth in inquiry was not compatible with pragmatism.

That phrase is so much more complex than most people give it credit for. The word power, in context, had a complex meaning which included the ability to create/invent/do. His natural philosophy was an “active” (not contemplative) one that put emphasis on inventions that could help humanity prosper.

As I traced back the origins of our contemporary data world all the way back to Francis Bacon, I found this beautiful piece by Czech philosopher Petr Šourek in a Media Studies book from 2011. I’m hoping to help him write a more internet-friendly version for Global Philosophy soon. #AIethics

For ~2 years and I’ve been reading all I can about Francis Bacon as a #philsci and #philtech guy. One could read many more books about him without mentioning science, tech, or philosophy and it would all be as impressive. Definitely up there with Descartes and others.

This summer’s readings!

Q&A in Noto, Sicily. For a seminar I gave for the University of Messina. Great group of researchers led by Nicola Angius in the Philosophy of Computer Science, Science and AI.

#philsci #philtech

Update w/updated itinerary: 5 weeks, 4 countries, 10 cities, 7 talks, 1 panel. Week 2, talk 3 and panel participation at IACAP done.

#philsci #philtech

So lucky I got to see @firepile.bsky.social twice elaborate on why she thinks “Hell is Other Robots”, specially ones that simply cant collaborate. Once at SPT and now at IACAP.