Event Timeslots (1)

Tuesday
4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
This seminar gives an introduction into the philosophical questions addressing Artificial Intelligence (AI). It focusses on the fundamental challenges related to AI such as meaning, compositionality, intentionality, empathy and consciousness. We trace the field from classic symbolic paradigms and connectionism through to modern deep learning models, transformer architectures, and Large Language Models (LLMs). We will also ask how AI systems can be empirically evaluated with regard to their humanoid character. Aside from active participation, participants will be expected to give a presentation in English. Assistance regarding the English language will be provided. Literature: · Buckner, C. J. (2024). From deep learning to rational machines: What the history of philosophy can teach us about the future of artifical intelligence. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. · Chalmers, D. J. (2023). Could a Large Language Model be Conscious? arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/ARXIV.2303.07103 · Grindrod, J. (2024). Large language models and linguistic intentionality. Synthese, 204(2), 71. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-024-04723-8 · Horgan, T., & Tienson, J. (1996). Connectionism and the Philosophy of Psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. · Macdonald, C., & Macdonald, G. (Eds.). (1995). Connectionism. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. · Mandelkern, M., & Linzen, T. (2024). Do Language Models' Words Refer? Computational Linguistics, 50(3), 1191-1200. https://doi.org/10.1162/coli_a_00522 · Müller, V. C., Dung, L., Löhr, G., & Rumana, A. (Eds.). (2026). Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence: The State of the Art. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-10073-3 · Quilty-Dunn, J., Porot, N., & Mandelbaum, E. (2023). The best game in town: The reemergence of the language-of-thought hypothesis across the cognitive sciences. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 46, e261. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X22002849 · Werning, M., Hinzen, W., & Machery, M. (Eds., 2012). The Oxford Handbook of Compositionality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.