Algocracy and Transhumanism Podcast

We have a limited number of ventilators? Who should get access to them? In this episode I talk to Lars Sandman. Lars is a Professor of Healthcare Ethics at Linköping University, Sweden. Lars’s research involves studying ethical aspects of distributing scarce resources within health care and studying and developing methods for ethical analyses of health-care procedures. We are going to be talking about the ethics of healthcare prioritisation in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, focusing specifically on some principles Lars, along with others, developed for the Swedish government. You download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Stitcher and a range of other podcasting services (the RSS feed is here). Show Notes The prioritisation challenges we currently face Ethical principles for prioritisation in healthcare Problems with applying ethical theories in practice Swedish legal principles on healthcare prioritisation Principles for access to ICU during the COVID 19 pandemic Do we prioritise younger people? Chronological age versus biological age Could we use a lottery principle? Should we prioritise healthcare workers? Impact of COVID 19 prioritisation on other healthcare priorities   Relevant Links Lar’s Webpage Swedish Legal Principles Background to the Swedish Law New priority principles in Sweden (English Translation by Christian Munthe) “Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions” by Persad, Werthheimer and Emanuel (good overview of the ethical debate) The grim ethical dilemma of rationing medical care, explained – Vox.com

Lots of people are dying right now. But people die all the time. How should we respond to all this death? In this episode I talk to Michael Cholbi about the philosophy of grief. Michael Cholbi is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He has published widely in ethical theory, practical ethics, and the philosophy of death and dying. We discus the nature of grief, the ethics of grief and how grief might change in the midst of a pandemic. You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Stitcher and a range of other podcasting services (the RSS feed is here). Show Notes Topics discussed include… What is grief? What are the different forms of grief? Is grief always about death? Is grief a good thing? Is grief a bad thing? Does the cause of death make a difference to grief? How does the COVID 19 pandemic disrupt grief? What are the politics of grief? Will future societies memorialise the deaths of people in the pandemic? Relevant Links Michael’s Homepage Regret, Resilience and the Nature of Grief by Michael Finding the Good in Grief by Michael Grief’s Rationality, Backward and Forward by Michael Coping with Grief: A Series of Philosophical Disquisitions by me Grieving alone — coronavirus upends funeral rites (Financial Times) Coronavirus: How Covid-19 is denying dignity to the dead in Italy (BBC) Why the 1918 Spanish flu defied both memory and imagination 100 years later, why don’t we commemorate the victims and heroes of ‘Spanish flu’?  

As nearly half the world’s population is now under some form of quarantine or lockdown, it seems like an apt time to consider the ethics of infectious disease control measures of this sort. In this episode, I chat to Jonathan Pugh and Tom Douglas, both of whom are Senior Research Fellows at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics in Oxford, about this very issue. We talk about the moral principles that should apply to our evaluation of infectious disease control and some of the typical objections to it. Throughout we focus specifically on some of different interventions that are being applied to tackle COVID-19. You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and many other podcasting services (the RSS feed is here). Show Notes Topics covered include: Methods of infectious disease control Consequentialist justifications for disease control Non-consequentialist justifications The proportionality of disease control measures Could these measures stigmatise certain populations? Could they exacerbate inequality or fuel discrimination? Must we err on the side of precaution in the midst of a novel pandemic? Is ethical evaluation a luxury at a time like this? Relevant Links Jonathan Pugh’s Homepage Tom Douglas’s Homepage ‘Pandemic Ethics: Infectious Pathogen Control Measures and Moral Philosophy’ by Jonathan and Tom ‘Justifications for Non-Consensual Medical Intervention: From Infectious Disease Control to Criminal Rehabilitation‘ by Jonathan and Tom ‘Infection Control for Third-Party Benefit: Lessons from Criminal Justice‘ by Tom How Different Asian Countries Responded to COVID 19  

Like almost everyone else, I have been obsessing over the novel coronavirus pandemic for the past few months. Given the dramatic escalation in the pandemic in the past week, and the tricky ethical questions it raises for everyone, I thought it was about time to do an episode about it. So I reached out to people on Twitter and Jeff Sebo kindly volunteered himself to join me for a conversation. Jeff is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Affiliated Professor of Bioethics, Medical Ethics, and Philosophy, and Director of the Animal Studies M.A. Program at New York University. Jeff’s research focuses on bioethics, animal ethics, and environmental ethics. This episode was put together in a hurry but I think it covers a lot of important ground. I hope you find it informative and useful. Be safe! You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and many over podcasting services (the RSS feed is here).   Show Notes Topics covered include: Individual duties and responsibilities to stop the spread Medical ethics and medical triage Balancing short-term versus long-term interests Health versus well-being and other goods State responsibilities and the social safety net The duties of politicians and public officials The risk of authoritarianism and the erosion of democratic values Global justice and racism/xenophobia Our duties to frontline workers and vulnerable members of society Animal ethics and the risks of industrial agriculture The ethical upside of the pandemic: will this lead to more solidarity and sustainability? Pandemics and global catastrophic risks What should we be doing right now?   Some Relevant Links Jeff’s webpage Patient 31 in South Korea The Duty to Vaccinate and collective action problems Italian medical ethics recommendations COVID 19 and the Impossibility of Morality The problem with the UK government’s (former) ‘herd immunity’ approach A history of the Spanish Flu

In this episode I talk to David Wood. David is currently the chair of the London Futurists group and a full-time futurist speaker, analyst, commentator, and writer. He studied the philosophy of science at Cambridge University. He has a background in designing, architecting, implementing, supporting, and avidly using smart mobile devices. He is the author or lead editor of nine books including, “RAFT 2035”, “The Abolition of Aging”, “Transcending Politics”, and “Sustainable Superabundance”. We chat about the last book on this list — Sustainable Superabundance — and its case for an optimistic future. You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify and other podcasting services (the RSS feed is here). Show Notes 0:00 – Introduction 1:40 – Who are the London Futurists? What do they do? 3:34 – Why did David write Sustainable Superabundance? 7:22 – What is sustainable superabundance? 11:05 – Seven spheres of flourishing and seven types of superabundance? 16:16 – Why is David a transhumanist? 20:20 – Dealing with two criticisms of transhumanism: (i) isn’t it naive and polyannish? (ii) isn’t it elitist, inegalitarian and dangerous? 30:00 – Key principles of transhumanism 34:52 – How will we address energy needs of the future? 40:35 – How optimistic can we really be about the future of energy? 46:20 – Dealing with pessimism about food production? 52:48 – Are we heading for another AI winter? 1:01:08 – The politics of superabundance – what needs to change?   Relevant Links David Wood on Twitter London Futurists website London Futurists Youtube Sustainable Superabundance by David Other books in the Transpolitica series To be a machine by Mark O’Connell Previous episode with James Hughes about techno-progressive transhumanism Previous episode with Rick Searle about the dark side of transhumanism

In this episode I talk (again) to Brian Earp. Brian is Associate Director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University and The Hastings Center, and a Research Fellow in the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. Brian has diverse research interests in ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of science. His research has been covered in Nature, Popular Science, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Atlantic, New Scientist, and other major outlets. We talk about his latest book, co-authored with Julian Savulescu, on love drugs. You can listen to the episode below or download it here. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify and other leading podcasting services (the RSS feed is here).   Show Notes 0:00 – Introduction 2:17 – What is love? (Baby don’t hurt me) What is a love drug? 7:30 – What are the biological underpinnings of love? 10:00 – How constraining is the biological foundation to love? 13:45 – So we’re not natural born monogamists or polyamorists? 17:48 – Examples of actual love drugs 23:32 – MDMA in couples therapy 27:55 – The situational ethics of love drugs 33:25 – The non-specific nature of love drugs 39:00 – The basic case in favour of love drugs 40:48 – The ethics of anti-love drugs 44:00 – The ethics of conversion therapy 48:15 – Individuals vs systemic change 50:20 – Do love drugs undermine autonomy or authenticity? 54:20 – The Vice of In-Principlism 56:30 – The future of love drugs Relevant Links Brian’s Academia.edu page (freely accessible papers) Brian’s Researchgate page (freely accessible papers) Brian asking Sam Harris a question The book: Love Drugs or Love is the Drug ‘Love and enhancement technology’by Brian Earp ‘The Vice of In-principlism and the Harmfulness of Love’ by me  

In this episode I talk to Dr Regina Rini. Dr Rini currently teaches in the Philosophy Department at York University, Toronto where she holds the Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Moral and Social Cognition. She has a PhD from NYU and before coming to York in 2017 was an Assistant Professor / Faculty Fellow at the NYU Center for Bioethics, a postdoctoral research fellow in philosophy at Oxford University and a junior research fellow of Jesus College Oxford. We talk about the political and epistemological consequences of deepfakes. This is a fascinating and timely conversation. You can download this episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and a variety of other podcasting services (the RSS feed here). Show Notes 0:00 – Introduction 3:20 – What are deepfakes? 7:35 – What is the academic justification for creating deepfakes (if any)? 11:35 – The different uses of deepfakes: Porn versus Politics 16:00 – The epistemic backstop and the role of audiovisual recordings 22:50 – Two ways that recordings regulate our testimonial practices 26:00 – But recordings aren’t a window onto the truth, are they? 34:34 – Is the Golden Age of recordings over? 39:36 – Will the rise of deepfakes lead to the rise of epistemic elites? 44:32 – How will deepfakes fuel political partisanship? 50:28 – Deepfakes and the end of public reason 54:15 – Is there something particularly disruptive about deepfakes? 58:25 – What can be done to address the problem?   Relevant Links Regina’s Homepage Regina’s Philpapers Page “Deepfakes and the Epistemic Backstop” by Regina “Fake News and Partisan Epistemology” by Regina Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson Deepfake Video “California’s Anti-Deepfake Law Is Far Too Feeble” Op-Ed in Wired

In this episode I talk to Dr Pak-Hang Wong. Pak is a philosopher of technology and works on ethical and political issues of emerging technologies. He is currently a research associate at the Universitat Hamburg. He received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Twente in 2012, and then held academic positions in Oxford and Hong Kong. In 2017, he joined the Research Group for Ethics in Information Technology, at the Department of Informatics, Universitat Hamburg. We talk about the robotic disruption of morality and how it affects our capacity to develop moral virtues. Pak argues for a distinctive Confucian approach to this topic and so provides something of a masterclass on Confucian virtue ethics in the course of our conversation. You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Stitcher and a range of other podcasting services (the RSS feed is here). Show Notes 0:00 – Introduction 2:56 – How do robots disrupt our moral lives? 7:18 – Robots and Moral Deskilling 12:52 – The Folk Model of Virtue Acquisition 21:16 – The Confucian approach to Ethics 24:28 – Confucianism versus the European approach 29:05 – Confucianism and situationism 34:00 – The Importance of Rituals 39:39 – A Confucian Response to Moral Deskilling 43:37 – Criticisms (moral silencing) 46:48 – Generalising the Confucian approach 50:00 – Do we need new Confucian rituals? Relevant Links Pak’s homepage at the University of Hamburg Pak’s Philpeople Profile “Rituals and Machines: A Confucian Response to Technology Driven Moral Deskilling” by Pak “Responsible Innovation for Decent Nonliberal Peoples: A Dilemma?” by Pak “Consenting to Geoengineering” by Pak Episode 45 with Shannon Vallor on Technology and the Virtues

In this episode I talk to Dr Karina Vold. Karina is a philosopher of mind, cognition, and artificial intelligence. She works on the ethical and societal impacts of emerging technologies and their effects on human cognition. Dr Vold is currently a postdoctoral Research Associate at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Philosophy, and a Digital Charter Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute. We talk about the ethics extended cognition and how it pertains to the use of artificial intelligence. This is a fascinating topic because it addresses one of the oft-overlooked effects of AI on the human mind. You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Stitcher and a range of other podcasting services (the RSS feed is here). Show Notes 0:00 – Introduction 1:55 – Some examples of AI cognitive extension 13:07 – Defining cognitive extension 17:25 – Extended cognition versus extended mind 19:44 – The Coupling-Constitution Fallacy 21:50 – Understanding different theories of situated cognition 27:20 – The Coupling-Constitution Fallacy Redux 30:20 – What is distinctive about AI-based cognitive extension? 34:20 – The three/four different ways of thinking about human interactions with AI 40:04 – Problems with this framework 49:37 – The Problem of Cognitive Atrophy 53:31 – The Moral Status of AI Extenders 57:12 – The Problem of Autonomy and Manipulation 58:55 – The policy implications of recognising AI cognitive extension Relevant Links Karina’s homepage Karina at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence “AI Extenders: The Ethical and Societal Implications of Humans Cognitively Extended by AI” by José Hernández Orallo and Karina Vold “The Parity Argument for Extended Consciousness” by Karina “Are ‘you’ just inside your skin or is your smartphone part of you?” by Karina Episode 32 – Carter and Palermos on Extended Cognition and Extended Assault “The Extended Mind” by Clark and Chalmers Theory and Application of the Extended Mind (series by me)  

In this episode I talk to Christian Munthe. Christian is a Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He conducts research and expert consultation on ethics, value and policy issues arising in the intersection of health, science & technology, the environment and society. He is probably best-known for his work on the precautionary principle and its uses in ethical and policy debates. This was the central topic of his 2011 book The Price of Precaution and the Ethics of Risk. We talk about the problems with the practical application of the precautionary principle and how they apply to the debate about existential risk. You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and a variety of other podcasting services (the RSS feed is here). Show Notes 0:00 – Introduction 1:35 – What is the precautionary principle? Where did it come from? 6:08 – The key elements of the precautionary principle 9:35 – Precaution vs. Cost Benefit Analysis 15:40 – The Problem of the Knowledge Gap in Existential Risk 21:52 – How do we fill the knowledge gap? 27:04 – Why can’t we fill the knowledge gap in the existential risk debate? 30:12 – Understanding the Black Hole Challenge 35:22 – Is it a black hole or total decisional paralysis? 39:14 – Why does precautionary reasoning have a ‘price’? 44:18 – Can we develop a normative theory of precautionary reasoning? Is there such a thing as a morally good precautionary reasoner? 52:20 – Are there important practical limits to precautionary reasoning? 1:01:38 – Existential risk and the conservation of value   Relevant Links Christian’s Academic Homepage Christian’s Twitter account “The Black Hole Challenge: Precaution, Existential Risks and the Problem of Knowledge Gaps” by Christian The Price of Precaution and the Ethics of Risk by Christian Hans Jonas’s The Imperative of Responsibility The Precautionary Approach from the Rio Declaration Episode 62 with Olle Häggström