Thomas Telving

Philosopher | Key Note Speaker #AIEthics | Author of ”Killing Sophia - Consciousness, Empathy, and Reason in the Age of Intelligent Robots" |

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

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[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

He promised us a Death Star. Instead, we got something that does even more things, none of which anyone really needs, just at a slightly faster pace...

Keep a cool head and a warm heart - whether it ends well depends solely on what we define as the ending 😉❤️

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel I know that, of course. But my point is that from Aristotle to Kant, ethics would be meaningless without humans being able to distinguish between experiences of various types of positive/negative value (often, but not only physically experienced).

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel I was referring to the UDHR in 1948. These formulations would hardly have been there without a wish to minimize suffering. But earlier even the stoics spoke about how to live well despite adversity, loss, and suffering. Ethics without suffering seem like ethics without values ...

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel Well, it was, after all, westerns that invented human rights. Without the capacity for suffering - if no one suffered in concentration camps - they likely would not have existed. Without consciusness noone would have any idea about right and wrong.

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel @meharmsen @nytimes @AnthropicAI Sure. But if that punishment did not harm any people (financially or otherwise) in the end it would be meaningless.

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel @meharmsen @nytimes @AnthropicAI In Denmark, real owners of companies must be registered to ensure accountability—so the law can trace and punish those truly in control. Because you cannot imprison a company.

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@lovable I really love your product. But for a professional who needs to keep accounts it is really annoying that it is so hard to find company information. What is your address? What is your VAT-number? Sorry to sound harsh, but it is really hard to find.

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

Commenting on the fine paper from @hankhplee et. al. in DK's leading AI podcast Prompt. The study pretty much documents my intuition: GenAI makes many of us dumber per default. But I think we can still make an active choice of using it for the opposite. https://t.co/yZCoY1Nj6M

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

AI might profoundly change the way we work, but ensuring its wise use requires significant effort. There is an obvious risk of accelerating the creation of content nobody really needs rather than increasing quality. Read my comment at @DataEthicsEU https://t.co/SYoAQEFSun

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel @mitpress Every time this comes up, I'm also like "I hate to say I tolds you so".

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel @jadelgador @mitpress I enjoy it and learn from it too. Nice discussing with you - it's getting late here but I'm sure we'll pick up on in another time!

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel @jadelgador @mitpress I've read a good deal of your work, and I believe we understand many of the issues in the same way. We also share a sense of their importance. In that sense, I am grateful for your tremendous effort in discussing these matters. However, we differ in our solutions and approaches.

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel I (we) have a huge epistemological problem due to the problem of other minds. But in practice empathy seems to beat rationality. This is why humanoids represent a big problem. We empathize, but likely on false grounds: technology can simulate suffering, but are unlikely to suffer

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel You may be right. Time for me to screenshot my own work as a counterargument, though.

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel I think the rationality approach was (in part, not all the way) too academic and not really a sign of practice. Bentham’s focus on suffering keeps us more grounded in reality, where empathy plays a key role, than Descartes and Kants, well, moral 'overthinking'.

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel This makes it far more palatable to me. I do, however, not see how to make an ethics without having the difference between phenomenologically positive/negative value (pleasure/pain e.g.) at the very core. A good person will minimize suffering, don't you think?

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel Everything, every "Other", could be subject to the question: Would it be of moral significance to crush you? I simply cannot navigate my everyday life without taking an interest in wether something is able to suffer or not.

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel So, you would not take into account before making decisions about how to treat the "Other" if this "Other" is able to suffer? If I were to decide wether to cut the leg of a biological bird or an automata bird, I would base my moral decision solely on that. What would you do?

[Thomas Telving @ThomasTelving]

@David_Gunkel Yes, but ... it's just that I don't get it. If you have two "Others", and one is able to feel pain, the other "Other" is not. There must be a moral difference between the two. If not, why would we even use the term suffering in moral and rights contexts?