This monthly AI reading group is due to move – please check https://philosophymachines.com/ for updates.
- 31 Oct 2025: Poetry is not a luxury.
We really enjoyed this, something as far from AI as possible, written 30 years ago. And yet so relevant. The big question: Can AI write poetry – that which illuminates our imagination, gives name to our feelings and experience? I had just written something on experience and AI. Sensory, embodied experience doesn’t lend itself to… Read more: 31 Oct 2025: Poetry is not a luxury. - 26 Sep 2025: Speculative Philosophy of Planetary Computation
New technology requires new philosophy, says Benjamin Bratton – especially what he calls ‘existential technologies’ as opposed to instrumental ones: those that prompt us to question so many of our basic concepts of reality. ‘[T]he artificialization of intelligence,’ he suggests, ‘will teach us much more about what thinking is than we will teach the machines.’ Central… Read more: 26 Sep 2025: Speculative Philosophy of Planetary Computation - 30 May 2025: The Automation of General Intelligence
Image: Oskar Schlemmer from Notebook n.4 of the Bauhausbucher, 1925, from ‘The Automation of General Intelligence‘ by Matteo Pasquinelli In this article, Matteo Pasquinelli writes that AI ‘actually emerged from the automation of the psychometrics of labor and social behaviors rather than from the quest to solve the “enigma” of intelligence’. His big-picture analysis challenges… Read more: 30 May 2025: The Automation of General Intelligence - 25 Apr 2025: Challenging The Myths of Generative AI
We discussed this article. ‘We can’t stop the bus, but we can steer it,’ writes Anthropic’s Dario Amodei. Myths and metaphors – let’s untangle the difference. ‘Myths and metaphors aren’t just rhetorical flourishes; they are about power,’ writes Eryk Salvaggio, the author of this article. A mythology of technology ‘aims for simple, graspable explanations at the… Read more: 25 Apr 2025: Challenging The Myths of Generative AI - 28 Mar 2025: Exploring Artificial Wisdom
This article from 2020 exposed its age, and its focus on aging (specifically geriatric medicine). For example, they note ‘clinical decision-making requires more than intelligent thinking – it requires wise thinking that incorporates ethical and moral considerations.’ Accordingly, the authors scientific framing: ‘Human wisdom is a scientific construct supported by empirical research during the last… Read more: 28 Mar 2025: Exploring Artificial Wisdom - 24 Feb 2025: Is Botto’s art any good?
The article we read was transcribed from a live event. And around the same time as this reading group, I attended another live event, a private view of a selling exhibition of the works of Botto – semi-autonomous AI artist created by human artist Mario Klingemann – who spoke on a panel at the PV.… Read more: 24 Feb 2025: Is Botto’s art any good? - 28 Jan 2025: Natural Selection Favors AIs over Humans
Here is a summary of our discussion of this article. In its form, I held up this article as a good example of a structured argument (like a dissertation or PhD thesis) – it sets out its aims and argument very clearly, breaks the argument down into coherent sections, and carefully details the evidence for… Read more: 28 Jan 2025: Natural Selection Favors AIs over Humans - 18 Dec 2024: The manliness of AI
After looking at an artistic approach to AI, then computer vision, in this session we focused on language – as used by Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Liz Jackson, a humanities scholar, laments how LLMs promote not only a masculine way of communicating, but (unsurprisingly) a very Silicon Valley-startup style: favouring langauge that is… Read more: 18 Dec 2024: The manliness of AI - 26 Nov 2024: Seeing, naming, knowing
I was attracted by the title of this essay. Seeing, naming, knowing imply a linear progression: from one to the next, Or: seeing + naming = knowing. My interest is epistemological: about what kinds of knowing and knowledge are produced by/with the kind of machine logic Khan describes, and how. She provides some answers. For… Read more: 26 Nov 2024: Seeing, naming, knowing - 29 Oct 2024: The Feral
Still from Camata by Pierre Huyghe, at Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 2024. Photo by Kevin Walker In the first session, we discussed this artistic perspective on AI. Present were a couple of us using AI in artistic practice, a couple people looking more at archives local history, and one investigating prosthetics. The local history angle is that… Read more: 29 Oct 2024: The Feral