There seems to be a flurry of funding for ML epistemology projects with lots of them starting in 2023. This list my attempt to get on overview what is going on in the field. I try to include only projects with a very specific ML epistemology focus (or at least epistemology has to be in… Continue reading List of current ML epistemology projects
Does clustering identify natural kinds?
This is just a quick comment on a recent debate in Philosophy & Technology between David Watson and Tom Sterkenburg. They discuss if clustering methods, nowadays classed as a type of machine learning, can find natural kinds. The point of contention is an epistemic claim by Watson: Some clustering algorithms can identify some natural kinds.… Continue reading Does clustering identify natural kinds?
Rota’s rant about mathematical philosophy
Gian-Carlo Rota who, if you didn’t know it, held a professorship for mathematics and philosophy took the opportunity of a Synthese special edition to condemn mathematical philosophy before it was invented. His basic argument is that mathematics is essentially clear and philosophy is not. Therefore any aspiration for clarity is damaging to philosophy. He also… Continue reading Rota’s rant about mathematical philosophy
Do LMMs really train themselves?
Recently Holger Lyre presented his paper “Understanding AI”: Semantic Grounding in Large Language Models in our group seminar. And while I generally remain skeptical about his claims of semantic grounding (maybe the occasion for a separate post) here I want to address a misunderstanding in his paper about what he calls “self-learning”, “self-supervised learning” or… Continue reading Do LMMs really train themselves?
The illusion of generalization
Contrary to optimistic claims in ML literature, I often cannot help but think that deep neural nets are indeed overfit and do not generalize well. But of course that claim hinges on what one means by generalizing well. About this there has been considerable confusion in the more practical engineering oriented ML literature, which at… Continue reading The illusion of generalization
A study in LIME
LIME for images explanations are extremely dependent on the choice of tiling. Tiling is one inductive assumption of LIME but it is hidden from the end user. I know I’m late to the party, but here we go. I was recently asked to say something about philosophical problems in XAI and LIME is an obvious… Continue reading A study in LIME
IACAP23 recap
Before my memory fails me – I didn’t take notes – I wanted to write down whatever I remember about the IACAP conference that took place in Prague in the beginning of July. There was a certain old vs. new guard feeling pervading the whole conference which played out mainly between traditional philosophy of computation… Continue reading IACAP23 recap
PHD and Postdoc positions in epistemology of ML at U Groningen
Jan-Willem finally has the ads for his project on data science in psychopathology (see The List) out. If you are interested check out the announcement on philosL.
ML epistemology workshop – Day 2
Notes for Day 1 here Meta-Inductive Justification of Universal Generalizations – Gerhard Schurz In this talk Gerhard defended his account of induction against some objections Tom published in an earlier paper. Unfortunately I am not very well acquainted with meta-induction and Gerhard’s presentation was a word document which he quickly skimmed through. So I had… Continue reading ML epistemology workshop – Day 2
ML epistemology workshop – Day 1
I recently attended Tom’s closing workshop on his Philosophy of statistical learning theory project. It was a great workshop and I learned a great deal from the talks. I provide a streamlined version of notes I took, for all those who were interested but couldn’t attend. The abstracts of the talks can be found here: https://www.mcmp.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/events/workshops/container/ml_2023/index.html#schuster.… Continue reading ML epistemology workshop – Day 1
What is anticipatory ethics about?
It was at ESDiT22 where I first encountered the term anticipatory ethics. This got my hopes up that there might be a new approach to the problem of unintended consequences in philosophy of technology. The problem of unintended consequences:The most troubling ethical problems in technology arise from unintended consequences. Unintended consequences can be known in advance, but most… Continue reading What is anticipatory ethics about?