Ramón Alvarado
@ramonalvarado.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Philosophy. Editor-in-Chief of Global Philosophy. President of the Association for Philosophy and Computing. Philosopher of computational methods and technologies in science and society.
Pinned
What is epistemic loneliness? - Synthese
The aim of this paper is to elucidate a type of loneliness that is epistemic in nature. It is so, I will argue, in virtue of the fact that it is first and foremost related to our capacities as knowers...
link.springer.com
🚨 My paper on the philosophy of loneliness, particularly on Epistemic Loneliness, is now out in Synthese. I argue that there’s a specific kind of loneliness that arises when we don’t have others to share/exchange/create knowledge with.
#philosophy #philsky #PhilPsy #epistemic #loneliness
#philosophy #philsky #PhilPsy #epistemic #loneliness
Reposted by Ramón Alvarado
David Fincher's THE SOCIAL NETWORK, and Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross's Oscar-winning score, turned 15 years old this fall. Here's some of my artwork for the album, created by manually corrupting images from the film by editing their raw hex data in a text editor, damaging them from the inside. 1/
November 7, 2025 at 8:17 PM
David Fincher's THE SOCIAL NETWORK, and Trent Reznor / Atticus Ross's Oscar-winning score, turned 15 years old this fall. Here's some of my artwork for the album, created by manually corrupting images from the film by editing their raw hex data in a text editor, damaging them from the inside. 1/
Reposted by Ramón Alvarado
A truly fantastic piece Ramon, I enjoyed the exchange enormously and argued back for the need to rescue intelligence from anti-human AI, it’s too important a notion to both human and non-human interactions with the world - see this rejoinder hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/c5hq3by1.... #philsci
Rejoinder: Let Us Rescue Intelligence from Anti-Human AI
hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu
November 7, 2025 at 9:39 AM
A truly fantastic piece Ramon, I enjoyed the exchange enormously and argued back for the need to rescue intelligence from anti-human AI, it’s too important a notion to both human and non-human interactions with the world - see this rejoinder hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/c5hq3by1.... #philsci
🚨New paper! My response to @sabinaleonelli.bsky.social’s Environmental Intelligence. In short: maybe we should stop using ‘intelligence’ altogether and recognize these technical artifacts as what they are: epistemic technologies with new and distinct affordances.
#AIEthics #Philsci #Philtech
#AIEthics #Philsci #Philtech
Artifactual Epistemology and Environmental Intelligence
hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu
November 7, 2025 at 12:33 AM
🚨New paper! My response to @sabinaleonelli.bsky.social’s Environmental Intelligence. In short: maybe we should stop using ‘intelligence’ altogether and recognize these technical artifacts as what they are: epistemic technologies with new and distinct affordances.
#AIEthics #Philsci #Philtech
#AIEthics #Philsci #Philtech
Making flour tortillas at home is weird because—despite being so simple, making them makes me feel like I’ve achieved whatever level of enlightenment Sor Juana Inez de La Cruz wanted Aristotle to be at when she suggested he should’ve spent more time in the kitchen.
#philsci
#philsci
October 27, 2025 at 3:41 AM
Making flour tortillas at home is weird because—despite being so simple, making them makes me feel like I’ve achieved whatever level of enlightenment Sor Juana Inez de La Cruz wanted Aristotle to be at when she suggested he should’ve spent more time in the kitchen.
#philsci
#philsci
Strolling through the Stuttgart forest talking to atmospheric scientist, physicists, engineers, computer and data scientist about Machine Learning in science.
Very interesting developments and considerations as we pondered discovery, knowledge transfer, and artifactual epistemology.
#philsci
Very interesting developments and considerations as we pondered discovery, knowledge transfer, and artifactual epistemology.
#philsci
October 18, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Strolling through the Stuttgart forest talking to atmospheric scientist, physicists, engineers, computer and data scientist about Machine Learning in science.
Very interesting developments and considerations as we pondered discovery, knowledge transfer, and artifactual epistemology.
#philsci
Very interesting developments and considerations as we pondered discovery, knowledge transfer, and artifactual epistemology.
#philsci
Download open source models, fine tune them or untune them with weird data, explore glitches and capabilities. Create local agents for garage projects, or like my friends say: make them feral.
#philtech #AIethics
#philtech #AIethics
I found that hanging out with artists and creatives helps transcend the whole “use or refuse” dichotomy and discourse. There are so many interesting and cool ways to appropriate this technology and push its limits and capabilities to take it into fascinating directions. Very similar to street art.
October 7, 2025 at 7:37 PM
I found hanging out with artists and creatives helps transcend the whole “use or refuse” dichotomy and discourse. Sooo many interesting ways to appropriate this technology and push its limits and capabilities to take it into fascinating directions. Very similar to street art.
#philtech #aiethics
#philtech #aiethics
ideally, the only places i want to be in AI are spaces for resistance, refusal and community organising
in reality, i find myself in spaces where AI governance, regulatory or institutional/scientific decisions are made where either i my input is paid lip service or entirely ignored
in reality, i find myself in spaces where AI governance, regulatory or institutional/scientific decisions are made where either i my input is paid lip service or entirely ignored
October 7, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Excited to be a keynote here. Talking about scientific discovery, serendipity and machine learning.
www.simtech.uni-stuttgart.de/communicatio...
#philsci
www.simtech.uni-stuttgart.de/communicatio...
#philsci
Navigating the Bermuda Triangle of Knowledge Infusion, Explainability, and Scientific Discovery | Cluster of Excellence SimTech Stuttgart Center for Simulation Science | University of Stuttgart
07 - 10 October 2025
www.simtech.uni-stuttgart.de
October 7, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Excited to be a keynote here. Talking about scientific discovery, serendipity and machine learning.
www.simtech.uni-stuttgart.de/communicatio...
#philsci
www.simtech.uni-stuttgart.de/communicatio...
#philsci
Flash trip back to Stuttgart to give a keynote on AI and scientific discovery. I’m really looking forward to the written version of this paper on serendipity, science, and computational methods. Hopefully by the end of Fall I’ll compile all the feedback from this year.
#philsci
#philsci
October 7, 2025 at 5:26 AM
Flash trip back to Stuttgart to give a keynote on AI and scientific discovery. I’m really looking forward to the written version of this paper on serendipity, science, and computational methods. Hopefully by the end of Fall I’ll compile all the feedback from this year.
#philsci
#philsci
Speaking of Hinton, hate to say I told you so…
Should we replace radiologists with deep learning? Pigeons, error and trust in medical AI - Alvarado - 2022 - Bioethics.
#AI #AIethics #Philtech
Should we replace radiologists with deep learning? Pigeons, error and trust in medical AI - Alvarado - 2022 - Bioethics.
#AI #AIethics #Philtech
Should we replace radiologists with deep learning? Pigeons, error and trust in medical AI
The sudden rise in the ability of machine learning methodology, such as deep neural networks, to identify and predict with great accuracy instances of malignant cell growth from radiological images h...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
September 25, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Some of the knee-jerk resistance to understand the virtues and benefits of Artificial agents and caregivers is heavily culturally biased. In this paper, @smusab.bsky.social provides a broader #AIethics perspective. This is an excellent contribution to an otherwise stagnated discourse.
The virtue of artificiality: Islamic ethics and the reconceptualization of AI caregivers
link.springer.com
September 20, 2025 at 2:04 PM
Some of the knee-jerk resistance to understand the virtues and benefits of Artificial agents and caregivers is heavily culturally biased. In this paper, @smusab.bsky.social provides a broader #AIethics perspective. This is an excellent contribution to an otherwise stagnated discourse.
For ~2 years and I’ve been reading all I can about Francis Bacon as a #philsci and #philtech guy. One could read many more books about him without mentioning science, tech, or philosophy and it would all be as impressive. Definitely up there with Descartes and others.
This summer’s readings!
This summer’s readings!
September 3, 2025 at 1:31 AM
So lucky I got to see @firepile.bsky.social twice elaborate on why she thinks “Hell is Other Robots”, specially ones that simply cant collaborate. Once at SPT and now at IACAP.
July 3, 2025 at 1:40 PM
So lucky I got to see @firepile.bsky.social twice elaborate on why she thinks “Hell is Other Robots”, specially ones that simply cant collaborate. Once at SPT and now at IACAP.
Next week I’ll give the META lecture at Politecnico di Milano on Serendipty, AI, and automated science.
#philsci #philtech
#philsci #philtech
Ramón Alvarado (University of Oregon): “Can Automated Science and AI Preserve Serendipity in Scientific Inquiry? If Not, Will We Miss It?” – META | PoliMi
www.meta.polimi.it
July 3, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Two of my favorite ideas from SPT last week. I’m still processing:
- @shannonvallor.bsky.social: intimacy as openness, current tech as closure of imaginaries.
- @davidgunkel.bsky.social: the author we invented is dead, yes. But we’ll come up with something new.
- @shannonvallor.bsky.social: intimacy as openness, current tech as closure of imaginaries.
- @davidgunkel.bsky.social: the author we invented is dead, yes. But we’ll come up with something new.
June 30, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Two of my favorite ideas from SPT last week. I’m still processing:
- @shannonvallor.bsky.social: intimacy as openness, current tech as closure of imaginaries.
- @davidgunkel.bsky.social: the author we invented is dead, yes. But we’ll come up with something new.
- @shannonvallor.bsky.social: intimacy as openness, current tech as closure of imaginaries.
- @davidgunkel.bsky.social: the author we invented is dead, yes. But we’ll come up with something new.
5 weeks, 4 countries, 10 cities, 6 talks, 2 panels. Week one/first talk at the Society for the Philosophy of Technology, done!
Doing different presentations of different papers for different expert audiences on #philtech, #philsci, and a bit of #AIethics as well! Living the dream :)
Doing different presentations of different papers for different expert audiences on #philtech, #philsci, and a bit of #AIethics as well! Living the dream :)
June 29, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Excellent opening keynote at PST by @sabinaleonelli.bsky.social. Thought-provoking messaging against AI hype in science. A bit lacking on #philsci that acknowledges successful ML use in hard sciences, but a needed corrective to sloppy general industry narratives.
#philtech
#philtech
June 25, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Excellent opening keynote at PST by @sabinaleonelli.bsky.social. Thought-provoking messaging against AI hype in science. A bit lacking on #philsci that acknowledges successful ML use in hard sciences, but a needed corrective to sloppy general industry narratives.
#philtech
#philtech
RIP
June 20, 2025 at 10:04 PM
RIP
Reposted by Ramón Alvarado
Workaccount2 on Hacker News just coined the term "context rot" to describe the thing where the quality of an LLM conversation drops as the context fills up with accumulated distractions and dead ends news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4430...
June 18, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Workaccount2 on Hacker News just coined the term "context rot" to describe the thing where the quality of an LLM conversation drops as the context fills up with accumulated distractions and dead ends news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4430...
I think this would be of great interest to folks in #philtech #AIethics #philsky #AI. Please share if you know of another community that would find this interesting.
Can we have close relationships with AI? In this new DatOS episode, Oluwaseun Sanwoolu walks us through her paper (w @johnfsymons.bsky.social) on why we are simply mistaken if we think we can. Hint: it’s our human limitations that make things special.
youtu.be/2vw3XVZV4Ps?...
youtu.be/2vw3XVZV4Ps?...
Why AI Can’t Be Your Friend. DatOS Ep. 6: Oluwaseun Sanwoolu
YouTube video by Ramón Alvarado
youtu.be
June 18, 2025 at 5:55 PM