Daria Zakharova
@dzakharova.bsky.social
PhD candidate @LSE Philosophy.
Thinking about minds and ghosts.
Working on AI, cognition, consciousness, animal intelligences and sentience, sci epistemology, tech-related ethics.
https://www.dzakharova.com
Thinking about minds and ghosts.
Working on AI, cognition, consciousness, animal intelligences and sentience, sci epistemology, tech-related ethics.
https://www.dzakharova.com
Great meeting on AI consciousness research this week at Google NY, what an inspiring crowd!
Really grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the panel on AI consciousness evaluation, alongside Roman Yampolskiy, @birchlse.bsky.social and Rob Long.
And special thanks to Rob for the sticker :)
Really grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the panel on AI consciousness evaluation, alongside Roman Yampolskiy, @birchlse.bsky.social and Rob Long.
And special thanks to Rob for the sticker :)
November 7, 2025 at 10:56 AM
Great meeting on AI consciousness research this week at Google NY, what an inspiring crowd!
Really grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the panel on AI consciousness evaluation, alongside Roman Yampolskiy, @birchlse.bsky.social and Rob Long.
And special thanks to Rob for the sticker :)
Really grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the panel on AI consciousness evaluation, alongside Roman Yampolskiy, @birchlse.bsky.social and Rob Long.
And special thanks to Rob for the sticker :)
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
The thing about interdisciplinary work is everyone gets to misunderstand you from a unique angle
June 24, 2025 at 1:23 PM
The thing about interdisciplinary work is everyone gets to misunderstand you from a unique angle
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
An emotional day - I can announce I'll be the first director of The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience at the LSE, supported by a £4m grant from the Jeremy Coller Foundation. Our mission: to develop better policies, laws and ways of caring for animals. (1/2)
www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-...
www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-...
LSE announces new centre to study animal sentience
The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience at LSE will develop new approaches to studying the feelings of other animals scientifically.
www.lse.ac.uk
March 25, 2025 at 10:42 AM
An emotional day - I can announce I'll be the first director of The Jeremy Coller Centre for Animal Sentience at the LSE, supported by a £4m grant from the Jeremy Coller Foundation. Our mission: to develop better policies, laws and ways of caring for animals. (1/2)
www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-...
www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-...
Well, hello again!
March 7, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Well, hello again!
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
Excitingly the official audiobook of The Edge of Sentience is out now. Even more excitingly, I have 6 free download codes to give away. DM during the next 24hrs for a chance of getting one!
February 20, 2025 at 10:37 AM
Excitingly the official audiobook of The Edge of Sentience is out now. Even more excitingly, I have 6 free download codes to give away. DM during the next 24hrs for a chance of getting one!
Glad to see coverage of our work! However, I wish the article (especially the title and the summary) would‘ve presented our approach more carefully / from a different angle - as to avoid the readers interpreting it as if we „confronted LLMs with pain“ or think we made them „experience“ anything.
Scientific American reports on some of our attempts to make progress towards a reliable test for AI sentience. www.scientificamerican.com/article/coul...
A New Way to Test AI for Sentience: Make It Confront Pain
A new study shows that large language models make trade-offs to avoid pain, with possible implications for future AI welfare
www.scientificamerican.com
January 20, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Glad to see coverage of our work! However, I wish the article (especially the title and the summary) would‘ve presented our approach more carefully / from a different angle - as to avoid the readers interpreting it as if we „confronted LLMs with pain“ or think we made them „experience“ anything.
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
I've done more public philosophy writing this year than ever before. Here is a roundup🧵. Just remember I don't write the headlines.
December 30, 2024 at 5:58 PM
I've done more public philosophy writing this year than ever before. Here is a roundup🧵. Just remember I don't write the headlines.
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
It's a new epistemic year
philosophical New Year’s resolutions:
1. No footnotes
2. No relying on intuitions
3. Never use the word “epistemic”
1. No footnotes
2. No relying on intuitions
3. Never use the word “epistemic”
December 30, 2024 at 2:27 PM
It's a new epistemic year
I’ve been advised that even as a PhD student, it’s nice to have a website. So, I now have one!
You can see some of my research and other projects there, like an immersive installation where you walk inside a spider’s head.
www.dzakharova.com
You can see some of my research and other projects there, like an immersive installation where you walk inside a spider’s head.
www.dzakharova.com
Home | Daria Zakharova
Home
www.dzakharova.com
December 29, 2024 at 5:38 PM
I’ve been advised that even as a PhD student, it’s nice to have a website. So, I now have one!
You can see some of my research and other projects there, like an immersive installation where you walk inside a spider’s head.
www.dzakharova.com
You can see some of my research and other projects there, like an immersive installation where you walk inside a spider’s head.
www.dzakharova.com
Another great read from Melanie Mitchell.
December 23, 2024 at 11:25 PM
Another great read from Melanie Mitchell.
Quite taken by the case for the revival of virtue ethics for our world of modern technology, social media and AI. Where the consequentialist and deontological frameworks seem to fall short (or at least remain incomplete)
1/2
1/2
December 23, 2024 at 6:39 PM
Quite taken by the case for the revival of virtue ethics for our world of modern technology, social media and AI. Where the consequentialist and deontological frameworks seem to fall short (or at least remain incomplete)
1/2
1/2
Periodically feel an urge to stare at Goya‘s Witches, like twice a year or so. A mysterious pre-solstice pull?
December 19, 2024 at 10:34 PM
Periodically feel an urge to stare at Goya‘s Witches, like twice a year or so. A mysterious pre-solstice pull?
Marking student essays in Mind&Metaphysics, and I don’t even know what’s lamer: an essay that’s clearly fully AI-generated (I also spotted the student using ChatGPT in class when asked to brainstorm discussion questions) or one where a chunk is just old-school copy-pasted (from a Medium article!)
December 19, 2024 at 9:46 PM
Marking student essays in Mind&Metaphysics, and I don’t even know what’s lamer: an essay that’s clearly fully AI-generated (I also spotted the student using ChatGPT in class when asked to brainstorm discussion questions) or one where a chunk is just old-school copy-pasted (from a Medium article!)
I had the pleasure to be a judge again, this year at the regional finals. And again I am amazed at how articulate, thoughtful and (mostly) coherent in their presentation these high school students are.
What a cool exercise and an experience for the young citizens!
What a cool exercise and an experience for the young citizens!
December 16, 2024 at 7:10 PM
I had the pleasure to be a judge again, this year at the regional finals. And again I am amazed at how articulate, thoughtful and (mostly) coherent in their presentation these high school students are.
What a cool exercise and an experience for the young citizens!
What a cool exercise and an experience for the young citizens!
Going to be reading Technology and Virtues by @shannonvallor.bsky.social over the holidays for a virtue ethics perspective and an extra-inspiration for teaching Data & AI Ethics next term.
December 16, 2024 at 12:41 PM
Going to be reading Technology and Virtues by @shannonvallor.bsky.social over the holidays for a virtue ethics perspective and an extra-inspiration for teaching Data & AI Ethics next term.
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
Totally selfish plug for our "Confabulation" main conference paper at #ACL2024 on exactly this issue: arxiv.org/abs/2406.04175
December 12, 2024 at 5:03 PM
Totally selfish plug for our "Confabulation" main conference paper at #ACL2024 on exactly this issue: arxiv.org/abs/2406.04175
A fantastic inaugural lecture by @birchlse.bsky.social at the @lsephilosophy.bsky.social yesterday, taking the audience on “a walk along the edge of sentience”. The pdf version of his book can be downloaded *for free* at academic.oup.com/book/57949
Proud to be a member of Jonathan’s team!
Proud to be a member of Jonathan’s team!
December 4, 2024 at 11:11 AM
A fantastic inaugural lecture by @birchlse.bsky.social at the @lsephilosophy.bsky.social yesterday, taking the audience on “a walk along the edge of sentience”. The pdf version of his book can be downloaded *for free* at academic.oup.com/book/57949
Proud to be a member of Jonathan’s team!
Proud to be a member of Jonathan’s team!
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
“Mazviita Chirimuuta’s The Brain Abstracted is a landmark work in the philosophy of neuroscience.”
Indeed!
Indeed!
New from the BJPS Review of Books:
The Brain Abstracted
—Mazviita Chirimuuta
Reviewed by Daniel C Burnston
#philsci #philsky #neurosky #neuroscience
The Brain Abstracted
—Mazviita Chirimuuta
Reviewed by Daniel C Burnston
#philsci #philsky #neurosky #neuroscience
Mazviita Chirimuuta, The Brain Abstracted | BJPS Review of Books
Daniel C Burnston reviews The Brain Abstracted, by Mazviita Chirimuuta
www.thebsps.org
December 3, 2024 at 10:46 AM
“Mazviita Chirimuuta’s The Brain Abstracted is a landmark work in the philosophy of neuroscience.”
Indeed!
Indeed!
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
Have another cube of cheese and keep going @cameronbuckner.bsky.social please.
I promised to post some threads with summaries of chapters of my book. Though it's still the holidays, we find ourselves with time on our hands during the "eating cheese, unsure what day of the week it is" slump before New Year's, so I'll go ahead and start.
December 28, 2023 at 7:34 AM
Have another cube of cheese and keep going @cameronbuckner.bsky.social please.
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
Twitter trains you to create more outrageous content. From 2018-2021 my team developed a tool to measure outrage on Twitter. Here's our paper showing that “likes” and “shares” teach people to express more outrage over time. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
How social learning amplifies moral outrage expression in online social networks
Social reinforcement and norm learning interact with social media design to amplify moral outrage in online social networks.
www.science.org
December 1, 2024 at 10:48 PM
Twitter trains you to create more outrageous content. From 2018-2021 my team developed a tool to measure outrage on Twitter. Here's our paper showing that “likes” and “shares” teach people to express more outrage over time. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
AI for science could be more impactful than chatbots. It is already helping win Nobel prizes and accelerating drug development and materials discovery.
Today we published an essay about it: why it matters, how it’s happening and its implications. Here is a summary from an econ / social sci lens.
Today we published an essay about it: why it matters, how it’s happening and its implications. Here is a summary from an econ / social sci lens.
November 26, 2024 at 10:39 AM
AI for science could be more impactful than chatbots. It is already helping win Nobel prizes and accelerating drug development and materials discovery.
Today we published an essay about it: why it matters, how it’s happening and its implications. Here is a summary from an econ / social sci lens.
Today we published an essay about it: why it matters, how it’s happening and its implications. Here is a summary from an econ / social sci lens.
A peek into the interactive VR experience on Portia the jumping spider, which I showcased at the workshop “What it’s like to be another animal” at the #Bristolmuseum&artgallery, organised by @simonabbrown.bsky.social , Ross Pain and Giulia Palazzolo.
Now proven to work for both kids & adults :)
Now proven to work for both kids & adults :)
November 28, 2024 at 3:11 PM
A peek into the interactive VR experience on Portia the jumping spider, which I showcased at the workshop “What it’s like to be another animal” at the #Bristolmuseum&artgallery, organised by @simonabbrown.bsky.social , Ross Pain and Giulia Palazzolo.
Now proven to work for both kids & adults :)
Now proven to work for both kids & adults :)
Reposted by Daria Zakharova
Nice paper about the epistemology of AI-driven Science illustrated with the case of AlphaFold.
philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24182/
philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24182/
November 21, 2024 at 7:35 AM
Nice paper about the epistemology of AI-driven Science illustrated with the case of AlphaFold.
philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24182/
philsci-archive.pitt.edu/24182/
This project was an amazing learning experience for me, what a great team and collaborative effort!
This paper lays ground for much follow-up work, e.g. in exploring different lines of evidence as candidates for constructing a future ‚portfolio’ of experimental artificial sentience research.
This paper lays ground for much follow-up work, e.g. in exploring different lines of evidence as candidates for constructing a future ‚portfolio’ of experimental artificial sentience research.
Can LLMs be induced to deviate from optimal gameplay in a simple game by threats of pain/promises of pleasure? And does the probability of deviating depend on the intensity of the promised pleasure/pain? According to our new paper (arxiv.org/abs/2411.02432) the answer is Yes & Yes for some models.
November 21, 2024 at 3:25 PM
This project was an amazing learning experience for me, what a great team and collaborative effort!
This paper lays ground for much follow-up work, e.g. in exploring different lines of evidence as candidates for constructing a future ‚portfolio’ of experimental artificial sentience research.
This paper lays ground for much follow-up work, e.g. in exploring different lines of evidence as candidates for constructing a future ‚portfolio’ of experimental artificial sentience research.