Dan Williams

YouTube video by Evolutionary Psychology (The Podcast) Shame, Pride, and Guilt with Daniel Sznycer

This week, we discuss the evolved logic of shame, guilt, and other self-conscious emotions with Daniel Sznycer

youtu.be/OkCBaBSvSzs?...

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...

www.podbean.com/eas/pb-xyz24...

A great job, application due November 17th. Please spread and help me with the right hashtags

Philosophers @danwphilosophy.bsky.social and Henry Shevlin just released a podcast on AI and consciousness, I enjoyed this one. This argument from Henry is close to my view.

YouTube video by Conspicuous Cognition AI Sessions #2: Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness - A Deep Dive

I recently talked to Henry Shevlin (Uni of Cambridge) about artificial intelligence and consciousness: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rvw...

Superintelligence and the Decline of Human Interdependence What happens to humanity when we no longer need each other?

I wrote about how advanced AI might gradually eat away at human interdependence, dissolving the glue that underpins human solidarity and cooperation. The risk here would not come from misaligned AI, but from how well-aligned AI threatens human alignment 👇 www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/superintel...

Consciousness science as a marketplace of rationalizations

my commentary on @smfleming.bsky.social and @matthiasmichel.bsky.social's thought-provoking BBS paper, and more generally about the field.

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Regrettably relevant research today

Disguised Repression: Targeting Opponents with Nonpolitical Crimes to Undermine Dissent
www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

What are we really doing on social media? The motives and strategies that shape our online presence

Everything you ever wanted to know about why we behave the way we do on social media.
The three layers of strategic considerations shaping our online presence: presentation, competition, and coalition building.

🚨✨ Publication alert: How do people in 6 countries (🇬🇧 🇺🇸 🇫🇷 🇦🇷 🇩🇰 🇯🇵 ) use AI 🤖 and think about it in the context of information, news, and institutions?

Our new @reutersinstitute.bsky.social survey research (n ≈ 12,000) with @richardfletcher.bsky.social & @rasmuskleis.bsky.social explores this.

Generational Imprinting: How Political Events Shape Cohorts Turgut Keskintürk August, 2025 How, and for whom, do political events translate into enduring political change? This article advances a three-stage model of cohortization, in which salient events produce age differential changes in attitudes, elite cues drive identity-congruent political sorting, and life-course timing regulates whether these attitude changes remain persistent over time. Focusing on the killing of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020 as a quasi-natural experiment, I test this model by analyzing attitudes toward U.S. law enforcement among non-Hispanic White Americans using five surveys that collectively span from 2016 to 2024. The findings consistently show that Democrats and Independents became strongly unfavorable toward law enforcement—much more so among younger than older individuals. Moreover, the changes persisted for younger individuals, while fading among older individuals, leading to cohort-led polarization. This article integrates two classic—though largely partial—theories of political learning, offering a model for understanding how salient events can realign generational divides.

a new working paper: osf.io/vsr5b

I propose a three-stage model of cohortization where dynamics of cohort learning and political sorting serve as complementary engines of aggregate political change.

I apply this to the case of the killing of George Floyd & the BLM.

it's also my job market paper!

Power balance and ideology Why the cultural hegemony of the left erodes its epistemic standing

An imbalance of power erodes the quality of public debate. The dominant side faces fewer epistemic constraints on its arguments, while the dominated side has less incentive to produce strong arguments or to engage with the rules of knowledge institutions.
www.optimallyirrational.com/p/power-bala...

"I think a lot of our beliefs are pseudo-beliefs and that the goal is to make it difficult to tell the difference between real belief and fake belief, and that is why it's so hard for psychologists to tell the difference because that difficulty is by design."

YouTube video by Evolutionary Psychology (The Podcast) Belief with Dan Williams

This week we talk to Dan Williams about belief. Is it veridical or social or both or neither?

youtu.be/vBzPtPNbcz8

www.podbean.com/ew/pb-ehzhx-...

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...

For Expertise to Matter, Nonpartisan Institutions Need New Communications Strategies To avoid irrelevance when they are needed most, experts and nonpartisan analysts must rethink not just their channels of communication but also their theory of influence.

Last week @rachelkleinfeld.bsky.social and I put out a provocation & set of suggestions on how influence has changed and why institutions (& funders) need to change their thinking on shaping public opinion and connecting w/audiences. The old way no longer works.
carnegieendowment.org/research/202...

I wrote the poster. Its aim is to attract a broad public to significant debates about AI using concise, accessible language. I understand you seem to have strong views but your post - "atrociously badly framed", "greviously reinforce public misconceptions" - strikes me as a bit over the top.

Public Philosophy in Brighton - this one's on 10th October.

A cautiously optimistic result on AI and disinformation.

A week before 2024 UK elections 13% of all voters used AI to ask about political topics. A randomized trial found this may be good: using AI led to similar gains in true knowledge as doing web research, regardless of model & prompt used.

AI Sessions #1: AI - A Normal Technology or a Superintelligent Alien Species? Is Artificial Intelligence Just Another Technology or Potentially Something Fundamentally Different and Extremely Dangerous?

Is artificial intelligence just another technology or potentially a “superintelligent” alien species that might bring about human extinction? Henry Shevlin and I discuss this and many other issues: www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/ai-session...

We Failed The Misinformation Fight. Now What? | NOEMA Defending democracy in the digital age will require moving beyond the focus of fighting online misinformation.

Worth reading: www.noemamag.com/we-failed-th...

The great @robynrwaller.bsky.social recently appeared on 'The Medical AI' podcast to discuss 'Brain-computer interfaces - coming miracles or technodehumanisation?'. Highly recommend!
creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/...

The truth about sport Why we really care about it

Why do we watch sport? It is commonly said that it is because of the beauty of athletic performance.
In reality, sport taps into our natural interest in status games. This explains many of the seemingly surprising aspects of how we consume it.
www.optimallyirrational.com/p/the-truth-...

ASPP 2025 Melbourne Australasian Society for Philosophy and Psychology 2025 Conference Melbourne, November 24th - 25th, 2025

Come to Melbourne for the 2025 Conference of the Australasian Society for Philosophy and Psychology

Check out the great keynotes - submit your abstract

Come join this exciting community of researchers

Nov 24-25 - Register now!

#philosophy #neuroskyence #philsky

sites.google.com/monash.edu/a...

Ha. They're (mostly) really short readings, though! But also, no.

Here's my syllabus and reading list for an introductory, up-to-date course covering the philosophy, ethics, and politics of artificial intelligence: www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/philosophy....

Against Political Chmess Why too much political philosophy studies a game that nobody plays

New guest essay at 'Conspicuous Cognition' by the great Paul Sagar:
www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/against-po...

I think anyone who's engaged with AI and climate discourse has noticed that a lot of people are getting really hung up on this. I'm just an individual guy and figured it would be worth a few hours to write some very simple blog posts with middle school math showing that they're mistaken.

Domination and Reputation Management How ideologies of liberation become tools of oppression

🔪"once you appreciate that reputation management is a deep-rooted, pervasive force distorting cognition and belief, you confront a vast space of possible ways this distorting influence might operate"

What's the carbon footprint of using ChatGPT or Gemini? [August 2025 update] A new study from Google suggests its Gemini LLM uses around 0.24 Wh per text query. That's the same energy as using a microwave for one second.

Yesterday, Google released a new report estimating the environmental footprint per Gemini query.

That's very welcome, as lack of any transparency from big tech companies has been a big problem. I hope others follow suit.

I wrote about on this on Substack: hannahritchie.substack.com/p/ai-footpri...

The case for staying on Twitter Against a politics of hygiene

I'm sure this will be popular. www.theargumentmag.com/p/we-have-to...

Some people in academia give the name "positivism" or "empiricism" to just anything that involves counting anything at any point. And, like, I just feel like everyone needs to aim higher. Be more ambitious.