In our September “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:
The Cocoon may not be the right venue for this query, but I’m looking for some direction when it comes to a literature base. Are there philosophers working in philosophy of AI that issue responses (direct or indirect) to the Dario Amodeis of the world? Amodei’s essays and pieces in the LessWrong part of the web are more complex than op-eds in periodicals, but I haven’t found a satisfying counterweight to these because it seems the actual work in philosophy of AI (viz., published in philosophy journals) is more fine-grained (as I think it ought to be). Thanks in advance for any leads.
This is something that I’ve found to be very frustrating. It’s impossible to keep up with all of the blog posts (at Less Wrong, Anthropic, OpenAI) and non-peer-reviewed work that’s constantly being put out at an ever-fast and furious pace. We academics tend to move much more slowly and deliberately, and I think for good epistemic reasons. But the incentives in industry and public discussions on messageboards pull in the opposite direction. There are some people (such as Gary Marcus) who push back a lot in public venues (e.g. Substack) against the Dario Amodeis of the world, as well as an ever expanding list of online personalities. But in the academic world per se? I’m not sure. If I didn’t have a 3-year-old at home along with an academic career, I might spend more time trying to do this kind of thing myself–but alas, I just don’t have the time.
Any helpful thoughts or insights from readers?
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