APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Computers, Vol. 14, No. 2
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NEWSLETTER | The American Philosophical Association Philosophy and Computers SPRING 2015 VOLUME 14 | NUMBER 2 FROM THE GUEST EDITOR John P. Sullins NOTES FROM THE COMMUNITY ON PAT SUPPES ARTICLES Patrick Suppes Patrick Suppes Autobiography Luciano Floridi Singularitarians, AItheists, and Why the Problem with Artificial Intelligence is H.A.L. (Humanity At Large), not HAL Peter Boltuc First-Person Consciousness as Hardware D. E. Wittkower Social Media and the Organization Man Niklas Toivakainen The Moral Roots of Conceptual Confusion in Artificial Intelligence Research Xiaohong Wang, Jian Wang, Kun Zhao, and Chaolin Wang Increase or Decrease of Entropy: To Construct a More Universal Macroethics (A Discussion of Luciano Floridi’s The Ethics of Information) VOLUME 14 | NUMBER 2 SPRING 2015 © 2015 BY THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION ISSN 2155-9708 APA NEWSLETTER ON Philosophy and Computers JOHN P. SULLINS, GUEST EDITOR VOLUME 14 | NUMBER 2 | SPRING 2015 but here we wish to celebrate his accomplishments in the FROM THE GUEST EDITOR fields of philosophy and computing one last time. John P. Sullins To accomplish that goal I have compiled some interesting SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY pieces from an autobiography that Pat wrote some years ago but that he added to a bit for an event held in his honor November 17, 2014, marked the end of an inspiring at Stanford. In this document he explains his motivations career. On that day Patrick Suppes died quietly at the and accomplishments in various fields of study that are age of ninety-two in his house on the Stanford Campus, of interest to our community. In that section you will see which had been his home both physically and intellectually just how ambitious Pat was in the world of computer since 1950. At the time of his death he was the Lucie education, particularly using the computer as a tool for Stern Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus and a member of philosophy education. While few would argue the value the departments of Statistics and Psychology and of the of computer and online education when it comes to the Graduate School of Education. Pat was the first recipient of formal topics in philosophy, such as basic logic or aspects the Barwise Prize, which is awarded by the APA Committee of critical thinking, I think many would argue that these on Philosophy and Computers. A more fitting individual for tools are grossly inappropriate for developing the Socratic the prize would have been hard to find given that Pat has symposium style of instruction philosophers have used done significant research, teaching, and publishing on a since the beginning of the profession many millennia vast array of subjects, many of which crossed over into the ago. Even from the early days of personal computing, Pat areas that we now call the philosophy of computers and saw things differently. He was convinced that something information. This, of course, was neither his only nor even like an AI tutor could be developed that could act as a his most significant award. In 1990 he was awarded the Socratic tutor to a student, and take them through a rich, National Medal of Science for his work in the measurement discussion based, educational experience that introduced of subjective probability and utility in uncertain situations, them to not only the facts of philosophy but to the the development and testing of general learning theory, method of philosophical inquiry as well. As you will see, the semantics and syntax of natural language, and the use he also imagined the “flipped” classroom many decades of interactive computer programs for instruction, any one before that term came into vogue when he suggests that of which could have been sufficient for an entire career. the computer is best used in philosophy to prepare the This issue of the newsletter is dedicated to his memory student on facts and reading so that they come prepared and towards that end I have collected some interesting to enter the classroom to enter into vigorous philosophical material. discussions. Pat was also way ahead of the game when it comes to experimental philosophy. He considered While I only knew Pat from meeting him at various himself an empiricist first and foremost, and he believed in conferences and events, I was struck by his generosity testing his ideas through experimentation. When Michael of spirit and the way he was undaunted by age. He never Friedman from the Suppes Center for the History and really retired from his positions at Stanford, he just went Philosophy of Science at Stanford and John Markoff from on to find other ways to contribute and work within the the New York Times were working on writing obituaries for academic community there and was still active with some Pat, John found a news clip from the Times archive from research and teaching in the spring of 2014. The last time 1966 describing one of Pat’s first large-scale experiments I saw him was at a conference at Stanford celebrating in deploying computer education to first grade students the many significant achievements that they have had in in an East Palo Alto school.1 East Palo Alto is very different the philosophy of science. Pat was there and in his glory from Palo Alto, its more affluent neighbor, but somehow Pat since many, if not most of those achievements were things convinced IBM to put the computer with sixteen consoles, that he had contributed substantially to. He was right in costing $450,000 dollars in 1966 money, into a school that the thick of the discussion the entire event. The lasting served underprivileged and at-risk students. Pat wanted legacy I will take from him is as a role model for the joyous the promise of computer education to cross all the social, dedication to the life of the mind and the many pleasures political, race, and economic boundaries. True to his vision, that can bring right to one’s last days. It is sad to lose him; this machine, the IBM 1500, made use of verbal inputs and I think he had at least another fifty years of good ideas left outputs through which “the child gets spoken commands, in him but he has bequeathed us much that we can use and suggestions and encouragement.”2 As John Markoff notes build on. There have been a number of very fine obituaries in the obituary he wrote for the Times, Pat wanted everyone written for Pat, and we have links to those later in the issue, to have a computerized tutor that could personally attend APA NEWSLETTER | PHILOSOPHY AND COMPUTERS to them as they learned any and every subject. Of course, this would be a very ambitious claim to make now and was NOTES FROM OUR COMMUNITY even more audacious in the 1960s when he first started developing technologies to make it happen. ON PAT SUPPES One of Pat’s most enduring legacies will be his many positive interactions with the people he worked with. To address that I also solicited some remembrances of Pat from our various members, and in that section of the newsletter you will find a wonderful anecdote from Marvin Croy that paints an amusing portrait of Pat as well as illustrates his desire to help younger scholars. In addition, we will dive into a brewing controversy. Recently, John Searle wrote a scathing critique of Luciano Floridi’s book, The Fourth Revolution in the New York Review of Books. Floridi was able to write a short reply in the pages of the review, but I thought it would be interesting to give him as much space as he wanted to make a more thorough reply and we have that in this issue. Hopefully it will spark an interesting discussion in the pages of this newsletter. Floridi’s work continues to gain attention across the globe, As IACAP program chair in 2002 I had the honor of and we have a good discussion of his book The Ethics introducing him with his presentation “A Retrospective on of Information from Professor Xiaohong et al. from Xi’an Instructional Computing” which was excellent. We shared Jiaotong University, P. R. China. many moments together during the meeting which I shall cherish always. Building on the philosophy of AI theme for this issue, we – Ron Barnette have two good articles that make challenging claims within the philosophical discussion on AI. Pete Boltuc makes an Pat Suppes had an eye for the future, and helped to lead interesting case for the idea that first-person consciousness us there. In 1967, he published “On Using Computers fits with a hardware analogy better than the idea that it is to Individualize Instruction,” The Computer in American similar to a software process. In this way he hopes to find Education (1967): 11–24. It is startling that 47 years later, middle ground between reductivist and non-reductivist that paper still has something interesting to say about the arguments. Late in the issue Niklas Toivakainen makes use of computing in education. the case that there is a deep conceptual confusion in the philosophical discussions of AI that may be preventing – Keith W. Miller, Orthwein Endowed Professor for meaningful dialog. Rounding out the issue, we have a Lifelong Learning in the Sciences, University of paper from D. E. Wittkower that explores some of the Missouri–St. Louis ethical impacts of social media from a new point of view. Please, do not forget the work done jointly with Mario We accept submissions regularly for publication in the Zanotti, see e.g.: Foundations of Probability with newsletter. This is a good forum for following up on debates Applications: Selected Papers 1974–1995, Patrick Suppes or making comments on discussions that might not fit well and Mario Zanotti, Cambridge University Press, 1996.