Nick Bostrom
Working Paper (2018)
Abstract
Scientific and technological progress might change people’s capabilities or incentives in ways that would destabilize civilization. For example, advances in DIY biohacking tools might make it easy for anybody with basic training in biology to kill millions; novel military technologies could trigger arms races in which whoever strikes first has a decisive advantage; or some economically advantageous process may be invented that produces disastrous negative global externalities that are hard to regulate. This paper introduces the concept of a vulnerable world: roughly, one in which there is some level of technological development at which civilization almost certainly gets devastated by default, i.e. unless it has exited the “semi-anarchic default condition”. Several counterfactual historical and speculative future vulnerabilities are analyzed and arranged into a typology. A general ability to stabilize a vulnerable world would require greatly amplified capacities for preventive policing and global governance. The vulnerable world hypothesis thus offers a new perspective from which to evaluate the risk-benefit balance of developments towards ubiquitous surveillance or a unipolar world order.
The working paper is here.
Vulnerable World Hypothesis: If technological development continues then a set of capabilities will at some point be attained that make the devastation of civilization extremely likely, unless civilization
sufficiently exits the semi-anarchic default condition.
Sunday, December 9, 2018
Saturday, December 8, 2018
Psychological health profiles of Canadian psychotherapists: A wake up call on psychotherapists’ mental health
Laverdière, O., Kealy, D., Ogrodniczuk, J. S., & Morin, A. J. S.
(2018) Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 59(4), 315-322.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cap0000159
Abstract
The mental health of psychotherapists represents a key determinant of their ability to deliver optimal psychological services. However, this important topic is seldom the focus of empirical investigations. The objectives of the current study were twofold. First, the study aimed to assess subjective ratings of mental health in a broad sample of Canadian psychotherapists. Second, this study aimed to identify profiles of psychotherapists according to their scores on a series of mental health indicators. A total of 240 psychotherapists participated in the survey. Results indicated that 20% of psychotherapists were emotionally exhausted and 10% were in a state of significant psychological distress. Latent profile analyses revealed 4 profiles of psychotherapists that differed on their level of mental health: highly symptomatic (12%), at risk (35%), well adapted (40%), and high functioning (12%). Characteristics of the profiles are discussed, as well as potential implications of our findings for practice, trainee selection, and future research on psychotherapists’ mental health.
Here is part of the Discussion:
Considering that 12% of the psychotherapists were highly symptomatic and that an additional 35% could be considered at risk for significant mental health problems, the present findings raise troubling questions. Were these psychotherapists adequately prepared to help clients? From the perspective of attachment theory, the psychotherapist functions as an attachment figure for the client (Mallinckrodt, 2010); clients require their psychotherapists to provide a secure attachment base that allows for the exploration of negative thoughts and feelings, as well as for the alleviation of distress (Slade, 2016). A psychotherapist who is preoccupied with his or her own personal distress may find it very difficult to play this role efficiently and may at least implicitly bring some maladaptive features to the clinical encounter, thus depriving the client of the possibility of experiencing a secure attachment in the context of the therapeutic relationship. Moreover, regardless of the potential attachment implications, clients prefer experiencing a secure relationship with an emotionally responsive psychotherapist (Swift & Callahan, 2010). More precisely, Swift and Callahan (2010) found that clients were, to some extent, willing to forego empirically supported interventions in favour of a satisfactory relationship with the therapist, empathy from the therapist, and greater level of therapist experience. The present results cast a reasonable doubt on the ability of extenuated psychotherapists, and more so psychologically ill therapists, to present themselves in a positive light to the client in order to build strong therapeutic relationships with them.
(2018) Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 59(4), 315-322.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cap0000159
Abstract
The mental health of psychotherapists represents a key determinant of their ability to deliver optimal psychological services. However, this important topic is seldom the focus of empirical investigations. The objectives of the current study were twofold. First, the study aimed to assess subjective ratings of mental health in a broad sample of Canadian psychotherapists. Second, this study aimed to identify profiles of psychotherapists according to their scores on a series of mental health indicators. A total of 240 psychotherapists participated in the survey. Results indicated that 20% of psychotherapists were emotionally exhausted and 10% were in a state of significant psychological distress. Latent profile analyses revealed 4 profiles of psychotherapists that differed on their level of mental health: highly symptomatic (12%), at risk (35%), well adapted (40%), and high functioning (12%). Characteristics of the profiles are discussed, as well as potential implications of our findings for practice, trainee selection, and future research on psychotherapists’ mental health.
Here is part of the Discussion:
Considering that 12% of the psychotherapists were highly symptomatic and that an additional 35% could be considered at risk for significant mental health problems, the present findings raise troubling questions. Were these psychotherapists adequately prepared to help clients? From the perspective of attachment theory, the psychotherapist functions as an attachment figure for the client (Mallinckrodt, 2010); clients require their psychotherapists to provide a secure attachment base that allows for the exploration of negative thoughts and feelings, as well as for the alleviation of distress (Slade, 2016). A psychotherapist who is preoccupied with his or her own personal distress may find it very difficult to play this role efficiently and may at least implicitly bring some maladaptive features to the clinical encounter, thus depriving the client of the possibility of experiencing a secure attachment in the context of the therapeutic relationship. Moreover, regardless of the potential attachment implications, clients prefer experiencing a secure relationship with an emotionally responsive psychotherapist (Swift & Callahan, 2010). More precisely, Swift and Callahan (2010) found that clients were, to some extent, willing to forego empirically supported interventions in favour of a satisfactory relationship with the therapist, empathy from the therapist, and greater level of therapist experience. The present results cast a reasonable doubt on the ability of extenuated psychotherapists, and more so psychologically ill therapists, to present themselves in a positive light to the client in order to build strong therapeutic relationships with them.
Friday, December 7, 2018
Lay beliefs about the controllability of everyday mental states.
Cusimano, C., & Goodwin, G.
In press, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Abstract
Prominent accounts of folk theory of mind posit that people judge others’ mental states to be uncontrollable, unintentional, or otherwise involuntary. Yet, this claim has little empirical support: few studies have investigated lay judgments about mental state control, and those that have done so yield conflicting conclusions. We address this shortcoming across six studies, which show that, in fact, lay people attribute to others a high degree of intentional control over their mental states, including their emotions, desires, beliefs, and evaluative attitudes. For prototypical mental states, people’s judgments of control systematically varied by mental state category (e.g., emotions were seen as less controllable than desires, which in turn were seen as less controllable than beliefs and evaluative attitudes). However, these differences were attenuated, sometimes completely, when the content of and context for each mental state were tightly controlled. Finally, judgments of control over mental states correlated positively with judgments of responsibility and blame for them, and to a lesser extent, with judgments that the mental state reveals the agent’s character. These findings replicated across multiple populations and methods, and generalized to people’s real-world experiences. The present results challenge the view that people judge others’ mental states as passive, involuntary, or unintentional, and suggest that mental state control judgments play a key role in other important areas of social judgment and decision making.
The research is here.
Important research for those practicing psychotherapy.
In press, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Abstract
Prominent accounts of folk theory of mind posit that people judge others’ mental states to be uncontrollable, unintentional, or otherwise involuntary. Yet, this claim has little empirical support: few studies have investigated lay judgments about mental state control, and those that have done so yield conflicting conclusions. We address this shortcoming across six studies, which show that, in fact, lay people attribute to others a high degree of intentional control over their mental states, including their emotions, desires, beliefs, and evaluative attitudes. For prototypical mental states, people’s judgments of control systematically varied by mental state category (e.g., emotions were seen as less controllable than desires, which in turn were seen as less controllable than beliefs and evaluative attitudes). However, these differences were attenuated, sometimes completely, when the content of and context for each mental state were tightly controlled. Finally, judgments of control over mental states correlated positively with judgments of responsibility and blame for them, and to a lesser extent, with judgments that the mental state reveals the agent’s character. These findings replicated across multiple populations and methods, and generalized to people’s real-world experiences. The present results challenge the view that people judge others’ mental states as passive, involuntary, or unintentional, and suggest that mental state control judgments play a key role in other important areas of social judgment and decision making.
The research is here.
Important research for those practicing psychotherapy.
Neuroexistentialism: A New Search for Meaning
Owen Flanagan and Gregg D. Caruso
The Philosopher's Magazine
Originally published November 6, 2018
Existentialisms are responses to recognisable diminishments in the self-image of persons caused by social or political rearrangements or ruptures, and they typically involve two steps: (a) admission of the anxiety and an analysis of its causes, and (b) some sort of attempt to regain a positive, less anguished, more hopeful image of persons. With regard to the first step, existentialisms typically involve a philosophical expression of the anxiety that there are no deep, satisfying answers that make sense of the human predicament and explain what makes human life meaningful, and thus that there are no secure foundations for meaning, morals, and purpose. There are three kinds of existentialisms that respond to three different kinds of grounding projects – grounding in God’s nature, in a shared vision of the collective good, or in science. The first-wave existentialism of Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche expressed anxiety about the idea that meaning and morals are made secure because of God’s omniscience and good will. The second-wave existentialism of Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir was a post-Holocaust response to the idea that some uplifting secular vision of the common good might serve as a foundation. Today, there is a third-wave existentialism, neuroexistentialism, which expresses the anxiety that, even as science yields the truth about human nature, it also disenchants.
Unlike the previous two waves of existentialism, neuroexistentialism is not caused by a problem with ecclesiastical authority, nor by the shock of coming face to face with the moral horror of nation state actors and their citizens. Rather, neuroexistentialism is caused by the rise of the scientific authority of the human sciences and a resultant clash between the scientific and humanistic image of persons. Neuroexistentialism is a twenty-first-century anxiety over the way contemporary neuroscience helps secure in a particularly vivid way the message of Darwin from 150 years ago: that humans are animals – not half animal, not some percentage animal, not just above the animals, but 100 percent animal. Everyday and in every way, neuroscience removes the last vestiges of an immaterial soul or self. It has no need for such posits. It also suggest that the mind is the brain and all mental processes just are (or are realised in) neural processes, that introspection is a poor instrument for revealing how the mind works, that there is no ghost in the machine or Cartesian theatre where consciousness comes together, that death is the end since when the brain ceases to function so too does consciousness, and that our sense of self may in part be an illusion.
The info is here.
The Philosopher's Magazine
Originally published November 6, 2018
Existentialisms are responses to recognisable diminishments in the self-image of persons caused by social or political rearrangements or ruptures, and they typically involve two steps: (a) admission of the anxiety and an analysis of its causes, and (b) some sort of attempt to regain a positive, less anguished, more hopeful image of persons. With regard to the first step, existentialisms typically involve a philosophical expression of the anxiety that there are no deep, satisfying answers that make sense of the human predicament and explain what makes human life meaningful, and thus that there are no secure foundations for meaning, morals, and purpose. There are three kinds of existentialisms that respond to three different kinds of grounding projects – grounding in God’s nature, in a shared vision of the collective good, or in science. The first-wave existentialism of Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche expressed anxiety about the idea that meaning and morals are made secure because of God’s omniscience and good will. The second-wave existentialism of Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir was a post-Holocaust response to the idea that some uplifting secular vision of the common good might serve as a foundation. Today, there is a third-wave existentialism, neuroexistentialism, which expresses the anxiety that, even as science yields the truth about human nature, it also disenchants.
Unlike the previous two waves of existentialism, neuroexistentialism is not caused by a problem with ecclesiastical authority, nor by the shock of coming face to face with the moral horror of nation state actors and their citizens. Rather, neuroexistentialism is caused by the rise of the scientific authority of the human sciences and a resultant clash between the scientific and humanistic image of persons. Neuroexistentialism is a twenty-first-century anxiety over the way contemporary neuroscience helps secure in a particularly vivid way the message of Darwin from 150 years ago: that humans are animals – not half animal, not some percentage animal, not just above the animals, but 100 percent animal. Everyday and in every way, neuroscience removes the last vestiges of an immaterial soul or self. It has no need for such posits. It also suggest that the mind is the brain and all mental processes just are (or are realised in) neural processes, that introspection is a poor instrument for revealing how the mind works, that there is no ghost in the machine or Cartesian theatre where consciousness comes together, that death is the end since when the brain ceases to function so too does consciousness, and that our sense of self may in part be an illusion.
The info is here.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
Partisanship, Political Knowledge, and the Dunning‐Kruger Effect
Ian G. Anson
Political Psychology
First published: 02 April 2018
https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12490
Abstract
A widely cited finding in social psychology holds that individuals with low levels of competence will judge themselves to be higher achieving than they really are. In the present study, I examine how the so‐called “Dunning‐Kruger effect” conditions citizens' perceptions of political knowledgeability. While low performers on a political knowledge task are expected to engage in overconfident self‐placement and self‐assessment when reflecting on their performance, I also expect the increased salience of partisan identities to exacerbate this phenomenon due to the effects of directional motivated reasoning. Survey experimental results confirm the Dunning‐Kruger effect in the realm of political knowledge. They also show that individuals with moderately low political expertise rate themselves as increasingly politically knowledgeable when partisan identities are made salient. This below‐average group is also likely to rely on partisan source cues to evaluate the political knowledge of peers. In a concluding section, I comment on the meaning of these findings for contemporary debates about rational ignorance, motivated reasoning, and political polarization.
Political Psychology
First published: 02 April 2018
https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12490
Abstract
A widely cited finding in social psychology holds that individuals with low levels of competence will judge themselves to be higher achieving than they really are. In the present study, I examine how the so‐called “Dunning‐Kruger effect” conditions citizens' perceptions of political knowledgeability. While low performers on a political knowledge task are expected to engage in overconfident self‐placement and self‐assessment when reflecting on their performance, I also expect the increased salience of partisan identities to exacerbate this phenomenon due to the effects of directional motivated reasoning. Survey experimental results confirm the Dunning‐Kruger effect in the realm of political knowledge. They also show that individuals with moderately low political expertise rate themselves as increasingly politically knowledgeable when partisan identities are made salient. This below‐average group is also likely to rely on partisan source cues to evaluate the political knowledge of peers. In a concluding section, I comment on the meaning of these findings for contemporary debates about rational ignorance, motivated reasoning, and political polarization.
Survey Finds Widespread 'Moral Distress' Among Veterinarians
Carey Goldberg
NPR.org
Originally posted October 17, 2018
In some ways, it can be harder to be a doctor of animals than a doctor of humans.
"We are in the really unenviable, and really difficult, position of caring for patients maybe for their entire lives, developing our own relationships with those animals — and then being asked to kill them," says Dr. Lisa Moses, a veterinarian at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-Angell Animal Medical Center and a bioethicist at Harvard Medical School.
She's the lead author of a study published Monday in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine about "moral distress" among veterinarians. The survey of more than 800 vets found that most feel ethical qualms — at least sometimes — about what pet owners ask them to do. And that takes a toll on their mental health.
Dr. Virginia Sinnott-Stutzman is all too familiar with the results. As a senior staff veterinarian in emergency and critical care at Angell, she sees a lot of very sick animals — and quite a few decisions by owners that trouble her.
Sometimes, owners elect to have their pets put to sleep because they can't or won't pay for treatment, she says. Or the opposite, "where we know in our heart of hearts that there is no hope to save the animal, or that the animal is suffering and the owners have a set of beliefs that make them want to keep going."
The info is here.
NPR.org
Originally posted October 17, 2018
In some ways, it can be harder to be a doctor of animals than a doctor of humans.
"We are in the really unenviable, and really difficult, position of caring for patients maybe for their entire lives, developing our own relationships with those animals — and then being asked to kill them," says Dr. Lisa Moses, a veterinarian at the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-Angell Animal Medical Center and a bioethicist at Harvard Medical School.
She's the lead author of a study published Monday in the Journal of Veterinary Internal Medicine about "moral distress" among veterinarians. The survey of more than 800 vets found that most feel ethical qualms — at least sometimes — about what pet owners ask them to do. And that takes a toll on their mental health.
Dr. Virginia Sinnott-Stutzman is all too familiar with the results. As a senior staff veterinarian in emergency and critical care at Angell, she sees a lot of very sick animals — and quite a few decisions by owners that trouble her.
Sometimes, owners elect to have their pets put to sleep because they can't or won't pay for treatment, she says. Or the opposite, "where we know in our heart of hearts that there is no hope to save the animal, or that the animal is suffering and the owners have a set of beliefs that make them want to keep going."
The info is here.
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
Toward a psychology of Homo sapiens: Making psychological science more representative of the human population
Mostafa Salari Rad, Alison Jane Martingano, and Jeremy Ginges
PNAS November 6, 2018 115 (45) 11401-11405; published ahead of print November 6, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1721165115
Abstract
Two primary goals of psychological science should be to understand what aspects of human psychology are universal and the way that context and culture produce variability. This requires that we take into account the importance of culture and context in the way that we write our papers and in the types of populations that we sample. However, most research published in our leading journals has relied on sampling WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) populations. One might expect that our scholarly work and editorial choices would by now reflect the knowledge that Western populations may not be representative of humans generally with respect to any given psychological phenomenon. However, as we show here, almost all research published by one of our leading journals, Psychological Science, relies on Western samples and uses these data in an unreflective way to make inferences about humans in general. To take us forward, we offer a set of concrete proposals for authors, journal editors, and reviewers that may lead to a psychological science that is more representative of the human condition.
PNAS November 6, 2018 115 (45) 11401-11405; published ahead of print November 6, 2018 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1721165115
Abstract
Two primary goals of psychological science should be to understand what aspects of human psychology are universal and the way that context and culture produce variability. This requires that we take into account the importance of culture and context in the way that we write our papers and in the types of populations that we sample. However, most research published in our leading journals has relied on sampling WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic) populations. One might expect that our scholarly work and editorial choices would by now reflect the knowledge that Western populations may not be representative of humans generally with respect to any given psychological phenomenon. However, as we show here, almost all research published by one of our leading journals, Psychological Science, relies on Western samples and uses these data in an unreflective way to make inferences about humans in general. To take us forward, we offer a set of concrete proposals for authors, journal editors, and reviewers that may lead to a psychological science that is more representative of the human condition.
Georgia Tech has had a ‘dramatic increase’ in ethics complaints, president says
Eric Stirgus
The Atlantic Journal-Constitution
Originally published November 6, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in September Georgia Tech is often slow in completing ethics investigations. Georgia Tech took an average of 102 days last year to investigate a complaint, the second-longest time of any college or university in the University System of Georgia, according to a report presented in April to the state’s Board of Regents. Savannah State University had the longest average time, 135 days.
Tuesday’s meeting is the kick-off to more than a week’s worth of discussions at Tech to improve its ethics culture. University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley ordered Georgia Tech to update him on what officials there are doing to improve after reports found problems such as a top official who was a paid board member of a German-based company that had contracts with Tech. Peterson’s next update is due Monday.
A few employees told Peterson they’re concerned that many administrators are now afraid to make decisions and asked the president what’s being done to address that. Peterson acknowledged “there’s some anxiety on campus” and asked employees to “embrace each other” as they work through what he described as an embarrassing chapter in the school’s history.
The info is here.
The Atlantic Journal-Constitution
Originally published November 6, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in September Georgia Tech is often slow in completing ethics investigations. Georgia Tech took an average of 102 days last year to investigate a complaint, the second-longest time of any college or university in the University System of Georgia, according to a report presented in April to the state’s Board of Regents. Savannah State University had the longest average time, 135 days.
Tuesday’s meeting is the kick-off to more than a week’s worth of discussions at Tech to improve its ethics culture. University System of Georgia Chancellor Steve Wrigley ordered Georgia Tech to update him on what officials there are doing to improve after reports found problems such as a top official who was a paid board member of a German-based company that had contracts with Tech. Peterson’s next update is due Monday.
A few employees told Peterson they’re concerned that many administrators are now afraid to make decisions and asked the president what’s being done to address that. Peterson acknowledged “there’s some anxiety on campus” and asked employees to “embrace each other” as they work through what he described as an embarrassing chapter in the school’s history.
The info is here.
Tuesday, December 4, 2018
Letting tech firms frame the AI ethics debate is a mistake
Robert Hart
www.fastcompany.com
Originally posted November 2, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Even many ethics-focused panel discussions–or manel discussions, as some call them–are pale, male, and stale. That is to say, they are made up predominantly of old, white, straight, and wealthy men. Yet these discussions are meant to be guiding lights for AI technologies that affect everyone.
A historical illustration is useful here. Consider polio, a disease that was declared global public health enemy number one after the successful eradication of smallpox decades ago. The “global” part is important. Although the movement to eradicate polio was launched by the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the United Nations’ World Health Organization, the eradication campaign was spearheaded primarily by groups in the U.S. and similarly wealthy countries. Promulgated with intense international pressure, the campaign distorted local health priorities in many parts of the developing world.
It’s not that the developing countries wanted their citizens to contract polio. Of course, they didn’t. It’s just that they would have rather spent the significant sums of money on more pressing local problems. In essence, one wealthy country imposed their own moral judgement on the rest of the world, with little forethought about the potential unintended consequences. The voices of a few in the West grew to dominate and overpower those elsewhere–a kind of ethical colonialism, if you will.
The info is here.
www.fastcompany.com
Originally posted November 2, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
Even many ethics-focused panel discussions–or manel discussions, as some call them–are pale, male, and stale. That is to say, they are made up predominantly of old, white, straight, and wealthy men. Yet these discussions are meant to be guiding lights for AI technologies that affect everyone.
A historical illustration is useful here. Consider polio, a disease that was declared global public health enemy number one after the successful eradication of smallpox decades ago. The “global” part is important. Although the movement to eradicate polio was launched by the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the United Nations’ World Health Organization, the eradication campaign was spearheaded primarily by groups in the U.S. and similarly wealthy countries. Promulgated with intense international pressure, the campaign distorted local health priorities in many parts of the developing world.
It’s not that the developing countries wanted their citizens to contract polio. Of course, they didn’t. It’s just that they would have rather spent the significant sums of money on more pressing local problems. In essence, one wealthy country imposed their own moral judgement on the rest of the world, with little forethought about the potential unintended consequences. The voices of a few in the West grew to dominate and overpower those elsewhere–a kind of ethical colonialism, if you will.
The info is here.
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