The Gilbert Ryle Lecture Series was established by the Philosophy Department at Trent in 1977 in honour of the late Professor Gilbert Ryle of Oxford University.
Eric Schwitzgebel
Professor of philosophy, University of California
Walking the Walk
Monday, March 18, 2024
- 5:00pm - 7:00pm
Trent Student Centre 1.07 - EVENT SPACE
Falling in Love with Machines
- Tuesday, March 19, 2024
- 5:00pm - 7:00pm
- Trent Student Centre 1.07 - EVENT SPACE
Intelligent Aliens Would Be Conscious; Intelligent Robots Maybe Not
- Wednesday, March 20, 2024
- 5:00pm - 7:00pm
- Enwayaang Building, Room 106
Lecture Abstract
"Walking the Walk": Do ethicists have any particular obligation to live according to the norms they espouse? Or instead, to paraphrase Max Scheler, can a sign point to Boston without needing to go there?
"Falling in Love with Machines": People are starting to fall in love with Large Language Models. If this becomes common, it will precipitate a social and moral crisis that our best ethical theories are radically unprepared to handle.
"Intelligent Aliens Would Be Conscious; Intelligent Robots Maybe Not": If a naturally evolved alien species acts as if it's intelligent, the best explanation is probably that it has whatever it takes to be conscious. However, if a robot acts as if it's intelligent, it might just be a mimic.
About Eric Schwitzgebel
Eric Schwitzgebel has been a professor of philosophy at University of California, Riverside, since 1997. He has published four books and over a hundred articles on a wide range of topics, including:
* the nature of belief (belief is more about walking the walk than talking the talk);
* theories of consciousness and introspection (he's skeptic about all theories and about all but the most obvious introspective reports);
* the relationship between moral reflection and moral behavior (especially the not-particularly-ethical behavior of ethics professors);
* robot rights (including what to do if we don't know whether our robots are conscious);
* philosophy of science fiction (including having published several weird short fictions of his own in leading SF venues).
His most recent book, forthcoming with Princeton University Press, is The Weirdness of the World.
For more information, please contact the Department of Philosophy at 705-748-1011 x7166 or philosophy@trentu.ca.