Philosophy of science meets robotics
Event details
There is philosophy of wine, philosophy of comics, and philosophy of Taylor Swift. But there isn't much philosophy of robotics. Of course, there is philosophical work on the possible ethical consequences of having robots in our lives. For example, will we treat them well? Will treating them poorly lead to us treating each other poorly? What features cause people to anthropomorphize a robot? Etc. But that is very different from work on robotics itself, where that term is understood as the study, theory, design, and construction of robots. Alongside the philosophy of biology, physics, chemistry, and engineering, we need a philosophy of robotics. In other words, we need a philosophy of the practice of designing and building robots. In this talk, I will invite a discussion about why having this kind of philosophy might be useful, what the philosophy of robotics might look like, and highlighting specific topics that I find interesting, such as what counts as "good" and "bad" in robotics; what counts as progress; what roles are played by imagination, collaboration, humour, and tool-use; and what skills and abilities are desirable for a roboticist, and how they have changed in recent years.
About the speaker
Dr. Mike Stuart
Dr Mike Stuart PhD is from the University of Toronto, in philosophy of science (2015). After that, he held a postdoctoral and research fellowships at the University of Pittsburgh, the LSE, Cambridge, the University of Geneva, the University of Zurich, and the University of Tübingen, and was an Associate Professor at the National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taipei.
He combines qualitative and quantitative approaches with traditional philosophical methods to investigate scientific reasoning (especially scientific imagination and creativity), scientific tools (especially thought experiments, models, visualizations), and the impact of artificial intelligence on science.
He convenes the philosophy of artificial intelligence MA program, and teach UG and PGT courses in philosophy of science.
Online Zoom Link: https://york-ac-uk.zoom.