•  90
    Algorithms are used across a wide range of societal sectors such as banking, administration, and healthcare to make predictions that impact on our lives. While the predictions can be incredibly accurate about our present and future behavior, there is an important question about how these algorithms in fact represent human identity. In this paper, we explore this question and argue that machine learning algorithms represent human identity in terms of what we shall call the statistical individual.…Read more
  •  206
    The stakes associated with an algorithmic decision are often said to play a role in determining whether the decision engenders a right to an explanation. More specifically, “high stakes” decisions are often said to engender such a right to explanation whereas “low stakes” or “non-high” stakes decisions do not. While the overall gist of these ideas is clear enough, the details are lacking. In this paper, we aim to provide these details through a detailed investigation of what we will call the “Si…Read more
  •  302
    Fragmentation, metalinguistic ignorance, and logical omniscience
    Philosophical Studies 180 (7): 2129-2151. 2023.
    To reconcile the standard possible worlds model of knowledge with the intuition that ordinary agents fall far short of logical omniscience, a Stalnakerian strategy appeals to two components. The first is the idea that mathematical and logical knowledge is at bottom metalinguistic knowledge. The second is the idea that non-ideal minds are often fragmented. In this paper, we investigate this Stalnakerian reconciliation strategy and argue, ultimately, that it fails. We are not the first to complain…Read more
  •  4
    It is undeniable that computer technology has had a major impact on how we engage enquiry. We use computer devices to store information that helps us in our daily lives—just think of the contacts on your phone and whatever calendar app you might use to keep track of your schedule. Furthermore, people enjoy easy and quick access to a wide range of reliable online resources such as Nature, Reuters, and Encyclopedia Britannica through their laptops or smartphones. Powerful search engines such as Go…Read more
  •  197
    Two Reasons for Subjecting Medical AI Systems to Lower Standards than Humans
    Acm Proceedings of Fairness, Accountability, and Transaparency (Facct) 2023 1 (1): 44-49. 2023.
    This paper concerns the double standard debate in the ethics of AI literature. This debate essentially revolves around the question of whether we should subject AI systems to different normative standards than humans. So far, the debate has centered around the desideratum of transparency. That is, the debate has focused on whether AI systems must be more transparent than humans in their decision-making processes in order for it to be morally permissible to use such systems. Some have argued that…Read more
  •  744
    The value of responsibility gaps in algorithmic decision-making
    Ethics and Information Technology 25 (1): 1-11. 2023.
    Many seem to think that AI-induced responsibility gaps are morally bad and therefore ought to be avoided. We argue, by contrast, that there is at least a pro tanto reason to welcome responsibility gaps. The central reason is that it can be bad for people to be responsible for wrongdoing. This, we argue, gives us one reason to prefer automated decision-making over human decision-making, especially in contexts where the risks of wrongdoing are high. While we are not the first to suggest that respo…Read more
  •  283
    Why algorithmic speed can be more important than algorithmic accuracy
    with Jakob Mainz, Lauritz Munch, and Sissel Godtfredsen
    Clinical Ethics 18 (2): 161-164. 2023.
    Artificial Intelligence (AI) often outperforms human doctors in terms of decisional speed. For some diseases, the expected benefit of a fast but less accurate decision exceeds the benefit of a slow but more accurate one. In such cases, we argue, it is often justified to rely on a medical AI to maximise decision speed – even if the AI is less accurate than human doctors.
  •  315
    Extended knowledge overextended?
    In Extending knowledge: reflections on epistemic agency and epistemic environment in East-West philosophy, Palgrave Macmillan. forthcoming.
  •  2302
    Artificial Intelligence and Patient-Centered Decision-Making
    Philosophy and Technology 34 (2): 349-371. 2020.
    Advanced AI systems are rapidly making their way into medical research and practice, and, arguably, it is only a matter of time before they will surpass human practitioners in terms of accuracy, reliability, and knowledge. If this is true, practitioners will have a prima facie epistemic and professional obligation to align their medical verdicts with those of advanced AI systems. However, in light of their complexity, these AI systems will often function as black boxes: the details of their cont…Read more
  •  954
    Bayesianism for Non-ideal Agents
    Erkenntnis 87 (1): 93-115. 2022.
    Orthodox Bayesianism is a highly idealized theory of how we ought to live our epistemic lives. One of the most widely discussed idealizations is that of logical omniscience: the assumption that an agent’s degrees of belief must be probabilistically coherent to be rational. It is widely agreed that this assumption is problematic if we want to reason about bounded rationality, logical learning, or other aspects of non-ideal epistemic agency. Yet, we still lack a satisfying way to avoid logical omn…Read more
  •  575
    Higher-order knowledge and sensitivity
    with Jens Christian Bjerring and Lars Bo Gundersen
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (3): 339-349. 2020.
    It has recently been argued that a sensitivity theory of knowledge cannot account for intuitively appealing instances of higher-order knowledge. In this paper, we argue that it can once careful attention is paid to the methods or processes by which we typically form higher-order beliefs. We base our argument on what we take to be a well-motivated and commonsensical view on how higher-order knowledge is typically acquired, and we show how higher-order knowledge is possible in a sensitivity theory…Read more
  •  1414
    On counterpossibles
    Philosophical Studies 168 (2): 327-353. 2013.
    The traditional Lewis–Stalnaker semantics treats all counterfactuals with an impossible antecedent as trivially or vacuously true. Many have regarded this as a serious defect of the semantics. For intuitively, it seems, counterfactuals with impossible antecedents—counterpossibles—can be non-trivially true and non-trivially false. Whereas the counterpossible "If Hobbes had squared the circle, then the mathematical community at the time would have been surprised" seems true, "If Hobbes had squared…Read more
  •  1322
    Hyperintensional semantics: a Fregean approach
    Synthese 197 (8): 3535-3558. 2020.
    In this paper, we present a new semantic framework designed to capture a distinctly cognitive or epistemic notion of meaning akin to Fregean senses. Traditional Carnapian intensions are too coarse-grained for this purpose: they fail to draw semantic distinctions between sentences that, from a Fregean perspective, differ in meaning. This has led some philosophers to introduce more fine-grained hyperintensions that allow us to draw semantic distinctions among co-intensional sentences. But the hype…Read more
  •  1131
    Problems in Epistemic Space
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 43 (1): 153-170. 2012.
    When a proposition might be the case, for all an agent knows, we can say that the proposition is epistemically possible for the agent. In the standard possible worlds framework, we analyze modal claims using quantification over possible worlds. It is natural to expect that something similar can be done for modal claims involving epistemic possibility. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the prospects of constructing a space of worlds—epistemic space—that allows us to model what is epist…Read more
  •  843
    A Dynamic Solution to the Problem of Logical Omniscience
    Journal of Philosophical Logic 48 (3): 501-521. 2019.
    The traditional possible-worlds model of belief describes agents as ‘logically omniscient’ in the sense that they believe all logical consequences of what they believe, including all logical truths. This is widely considered a problem if we want to reason about the epistemic lives of non-ideal agents who—much like ordinary human beings—are logically competent, but not logically omniscient. A popular strategy for avoiding logical omniscience centers around the use of impossible worlds: worlds tha…Read more
  •  710
    Granularity problems
    Philosophical Quarterly 67 (266): 22-37. 2017.
    Possible-worlds accounts of mental or linguistic content are often criticized for being too coarse-grained. To make room for more fine-grained distinctions among contents, several authors have recently proposed extending the space of possible worlds by "impossible worlds". We argue that this strategy comes with serious costs: we would effectively have to abandon most of the features that make the possible-worlds framework attractive. More generally, we argue that while there are intuitive and th…Read more
  •  995
    Non-Ideal Epistemic Spaces
    Dissertation, Australian National University. 2010.
    In a possible world framework, an agent can be said to know a proposition just in case the proposition is true at all worlds that are epistemically possible for the agent. Roughly, a world is epistemically possible for an agent just in case the world is not ruled out by anything the agent knows. If a proposition is true at some epistemically possible world for an agent, the proposition is epistemically possible for the agent. If a proposition is true at all epistemically possible worlds for an a…Read more
  •  1513
    On the rationality of pluralistic ignorance
    with Jens Ulrik Hansen and Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen
    Synthese 191 (11): 2445-2470. 2014.
    Pluralistic ignorance is a socio-psychological phenomenon that involves a systematic discrepancy between people’s private beliefs and public behavior in certain social contexts. Recently, pluralistic ignorance has gained increased attention in formal and social epistemology. But to get clear on what precisely a formal and social epistemological account of pluralistic ignorance should look like, we need answers to at least the following two questions: What exactly is the phenomenon of pluralistic…Read more
  •  222
    While many philosophers have agreed that evidence of disagreement is a kind of higher-order evidence, this has not yet resulted in formally precise higher-order approaches to the problem of disagreement. In this paper, we outline a simple formal framework for determining the epistemic significance of a body of higher-order evidence, and use this framework to motivate a novel interpretation of the popular “equal weight view” of peer disagreement—we call it the Variably Equal Weight View (VEW). We…Read more
  •  141
    In this paper we explore the potential bearing of the extended mind thesis—the thesis that the mind extends into the world—on epistemology. We do three things. First, we argue that the combination of the extended mind thesis and reliabilism about knowledge entails that ordinary subjects can easily come to enjoy various forms of restricted omniscience. Second, we discuss the conceptual foundations of the extended mind and knowledge debate. We suggest that the theses of extended mind and extended …Read more
  •  512
    New Essays on the Knowability Paradox
    History and Philosophy of Logic 33 (1). 2012.
    History and Philosophy of Logic, Volume 33, Issue 1, Page 101-104, February 2012
  •  1555
    In this paper, I investigate whether we can use a world-involving framework to model the epistemic states of non-ideal agents. The standard possible-world framework falters in this respect because of a commitment to logical omniscience. A familiar attempt to overcome this problem centers around the use of impossible worlds where the truths of logic can be false. As we shall see, if we admit impossible worlds where “anything goes” in modal space, it is easy to model extremely non-ideal agents tha…Read more