A Minimal Turing Test

McCoy, J. P., and Ullman, T.D.

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Volume 79, November 2018, Pages 1-8

Abstract

We introduce the Minimal Turing Test, an experimental paradigm for studying perceptions and meta-perceptions of different social groups or kinds of agents, in which participants must use a single word to convince a judge of their identity. We illustrate the paradigm by having participants act as contestants or judges in a Minimal Turing Test in which contestants must convince a judge they are a human, rather than an artificial intelligence. We embed the production data from such a large-scale Minimal Turing Test in a semantic vector space, and construct an ordering over pairwise evaluations from judges. This allows us to identify the semantic structure in the words that people give, and to obtain quantitative measures of the importance that people place on different attributes. Ratings from independent coders of the production data provide additional evidence for the agency and experience dimensions discovered in previous work on mind perception. We use the theory of Rational Speech Acts as a framework for interpreting the behavior of contestants and judges in the Minimal Turing Test.

The research is here.

A pdf is here.

Supernatural Explanations Across the Globe Are More Common for Natural Than Social Phenomena

Jackson, J. C., et al.

(2021, September 2).

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6us9r

Abstract

Supernatural beliefs are common in every human society, and people frequently invoke the supernatural to explain natural (e.g., storms, disease outbreaks) and social (e.g., murder, warfare) events. However, evolutionary and psychological theories of religion raise competing hypotheses about whether supernatural explanations should more commonly focus on natural or social phenomena. Here we test these hypotheses with a global analysis of supernatural explanations in 109 geographically and culturally diverse societies. We find that supernatural explanations are more prevalent for natural phenomena than for social phenomena, an effect that generalizes across regions and subsistence styles and cannot be reduced to the frequency of natural vs. social phenomena or common cultural ancestry. We also find that supernatural explanations of social phenomena only occur in societies that also have supernatural explanations of natural phenomena. This evidence is consistent with theories that ground the origin of supernatural belief in a human tendency to perceive intent and agency in nature.

Discussion

Religious beliefs are prevalent in virtually every human society, and may even predate anatomically modern humans. The widespread prevalence of supernatural explanations suggests that explanation is a core property of religious beliefs, and humans may have long used religious beliefs to explain aspects of their natural and social worlds. However, there has never been a worldwide survey of supernatural explanations, which has been a barrier to understanding the most frequent ways that people use religious belief as a tool for explanation. 

We use a global analysis of societies in the ethnographic record to show that humans are more likely to use supernatural explanations to explain natural phenomena versus social phenomena. Across all world regions and subsistence styles, societies were more likely to attribute natural events like famine and disease to supernatural causes compared to social events such as warfare and murder. This prevalence gap could not be explained by the frequency of phenomena in our analysis (i.e., that disease outbreaks occurred more frequently than warfare).

The research is here.

Demand five precepts to aid social-media watchdogs

Ethan Zucker

Nature 597, 9 (2021)

Originally punished 31 Aug 21

Here is an excerpt:

I propose the following. First, give researchers access to the same targeting tools that platforms offer to advertisers and commercial partners. Second, for publicly viewable content, allow researchers to combine and share data sets by supplying keys to application programming interfaces. Third, explicitly allow users to donate data about their online behaviour for research, and make code used for such studies publicly reviewable for security flaws. Fourth, create safe-haven protections that recognize the public interest. Fifth, mandate regular audits of algorithms that moderate content and serve ads.

In the United States, the FTC could demand this access on behalf of consumers: it has broad powers to compel the release of data. In Europe, making such demands should be even more straightforward. The European Data Governance Act, proposed in November 2020, advances the concept of “data altruism” that allows users to donate their data, and the broader Digital Services Act includes a potential framework to implement protections for research in the public interest.

Technology companies argue that they must restrict data access because of the potential for harm, which also conveniently insulates them from criticism and scrutiny. They cite misuse of data, such as in the Cambridge Analytica scandal (which came to light in 2018 and prompted the FTC orders), in which an academic researcher took data from tens of millions of Facebook users collected through online ‘personality tests’ and gave it to a UK political consultancy that worked on behalf of Donald Trump and the Brexit campaign. Another example of abuse of data is the case of Clearview AI, which used scraping to produce a huge photographic database to allow federal and state law-enforcement agencies to identify individuals.

These incidents have led tech companies to design systems to prevent misuse — but such systems also prevent research necessary for oversight and scrutiny. To ensure that platforms act fairly and benefit society, there must be ways to protect user data and allow independent oversight.

The article is here.

Good deeds and hard knocks: The effect of past suffering on praise for moral behavior

P. Robbins, F. Alvera, & P. Litton

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Volume 97, November 2021

Abstract

Are judgments of praise for moral behavior modulated by knowledge of an agent's past suffering at the hands of others, and if so, in what direction? Drawing on multiple lines of research in experimental social psychology, we identify three hypotheses about the psychology of praise — typecasting, handicapping, and non-historicism — each of which supports a different answer to the question above. Typecasting predicts that information about past suffering will augment perceived patiency and thereby diminish perceived agency, making altruistic actions seem less praiseworthy; handicapping predicts that this information will make altruistic actions seem more effortful, and hence more praiseworthy; and non-historicism predicts that judgments of praise will be insensitive to information about an agent's experiential history. We report the results of two studies suggesting that altruistic behavior tends to attract more praise when the experiential history of the agent involves coping with adversity in childhood rather than enjoying prosperity (Study 1, N = 348, p = .03, d = 0.45; Study 2, N = 400, p = .02, d = 0.39), as well as the results of a third study suggesting that altruistic behavior tends to be evaluated more favorably when the experiential history of the agent includes coping with adversity than in the absence of information about the agent's past experience (N = 226, p = .002). This pattern of results, we argue, is more consistent with handicapping than typecasting or non-historicism.

From the Discussion

One possibility is that a history of suffering is perceived as depleting the psychological resources required for acting morally, making it difficult for someone to shift attention from their own needs to the needs of others. This is suggested by the stereotype of people who have suffered hardships in early life, especially at the hands of caregivers, which includes a tendency to be socially anxious, insecure, and withdrawn — a stereotype which may have some basis in fact (Elliott, Cunningham, Linder, Colangelo, & Gross, 2005). A history of suffering, that is, might seem like an obstacle to developing the kind of social mindedness exemplified by acts of altruism and other forms of prosocial behavior, which are typically motivated by feelings of compassion or empathic concern. This is an open empirical question, worthy of investigation not just in connection with handicapping and typecasting (and historicist accounts of praise more generally) but in its own right.

The research is here.

This research may have implications for psychotherapy.

Oppressive Double Binds

S. Hirji

Ethics, Vol 131, 4.

July 2021

Abstract

I give an account of the structure of “oppressive double binds,” the double binds that exist in virtue of oppression. I explain how these double binds both are a product of and serve to reinforce oppressive structures. The central feature of double binds, I argue, is that an agent’s own prudential good is bound up with their ability to resist oppression; double binds are choice situations where no matter what an agent does, they become a mechanism in their own oppression. A consequence is that double binds constrain an individual’s agency while leaving various dimensions of their autonomy fully intact.

In the concluding remarks

To sum up: I have had three overarching goals of this article. The first has been to vindicate Frye’s point that once we properly understand the structure of double binds, we see how they differ from ordinary restrictions on an individual’s options and how they serve to immobilize and reduce members of certain groups. As Frye insists, understanding this difference between mechanisms of oppression and ordinary restrictions on our options is a crucial part of identifying and challenging oppressive structures. The second goal has been to develop and refine the concept of a double bind so that it can be useful in theorizing about oppression. I have argued that double binds are choice situations in which a member of an oppressed group is forced to choose between cooperating with and resisting some oppressive norm, and because of the way their own prudential good is bound up with their ability to resist oppression, they end up to some degree reinforcing their own oppression no matter what they do. The third goal has been to better understand what I call “imperfect choices”—choices where, no matter what an agent does, they undermine the very interest at stake in their choice. I have argued that “imperfect choices” constrain an individual’s agency while leaving various dimensions of their autonomy fully intact.

The information is here.

Nudgeability: Mapping Conditions of Susceptibility to Nudge Influence

de Ridder, D., Kroese, F., & van Gestel, L. (2021). 

Perspectives on psychological science 

Advance online publication. 

https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691621995183

Abstract

Nudges are behavioral interventions to subtly steer citizens' choices toward "desirable" options. An important topic of debate concerns the legitimacy of nudging as a policy instrument, and there is a focus on issues relating to nudge transparency, the role of preexisting preferences people may have, and the premise that nudges primarily affect people when they are in "irrational" modes of thinking. Empirical insights into how these factors affect the extent to which people are susceptible to nudge influence (i.e., "nudgeable") are lacking in the debate. This article introduces the new concept of nudgeability and makes a first attempt to synthesize the evidence on when people are responsive to nudges. We find that nudge effects do not hinge on transparency or modes of thinking but that personal preferences moderate effects such that people cannot be nudged into something they do not want. We conclude that, in view of these findings, concerns about nudging legitimacy should be softened and that future research should attend to these and other conditions of nudgeability.

From the General Discussion

Finally, returning to the debates on nudging legitimacy that we addressed at the beginning of this article, it seems that concerns should be softened insofar as nudges do impose choice without respecting basic ethical requirements for good public policy. More than a decade ago, philosopher Luc Bovens (2009) formulated the following four principles for nudging to be legitimate: A nudge should allow people to act in line with their overall preferences; a nudge should not induce a change in preferences that would not hold under nonnudge conditions; a nudge should not lead to “infantilization,” such that people are no longer capable of making autonomous decisions; and a nudge should be transparent so that people have control over being in a nudge situation. With the findings from our review in mind, it seems that these legitimacy requirements are fulfilled. Nudges do allow people to act in line with their overall preferences, nudges allow for making autonomous decisions insofar as nudge effects do not depend on being in a System 1 mode of thinking, and making the nudge transparent does not compromise nudge effects.

The paper is here.

Can induced reflection affect moral decision-making

Daniel Spears, et al. (2021) 

Philosophical Psychology, 34:1, 28-46, 

DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2020.1861234

Abstract

Evidence about whether reflective thinking may be induced and whether it affects utilitarian choices is inconclusive. Research suggests that answering items correctly in the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) before responding to dilemmas may lead to more utilitarian decisions. However, it is unclear to what extent this effect is driven by the inhibition of intuitive wrong responses (reflection) versus the requirement to engage in deliberative processing. To clarify this issue, participants completed either the CRT or the Berlin Numeracy Test (BNT) – which does not require reflection – before responding to moral dilemmas. To distinguish between the potential effect of participants’ previous reflective traits and that of performing a task that can increase reflectivity, we manipulated whether participants received feedback for incorrect items. Findings revealed that both CRT and BNT scores predicted utilitarian decisions when feedback was not provided. Additionally, feedback enhanced performance for both tasks, although it only increased utilitarian decisions when it was linked to the BNT. Taken together, these results suggest that performance in a numeric task that requires deliberative thinking may predict utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas. The finding that feedback increased utilitarian decisions only in the case of BNT casts doubt upon the reflective-utilitarian link.

From the General Discussion

Our data, however, did not fully support these predictions. Although feedback resulted in more utilitarian responses to moral dilemmas, this effect was mostly attributable to feedback on the BNT.  The effect was  not  attributable to differences in baseline task-performance. Additionally, both CRT and BNT scores predicted utilitarian responses when feedback was not provided. That  performance in the CRT predicts  utilitarian decisions is in agreement with a previous study linking cognitive reflection to utilitarian choice (Paxton et al., 2012; but see Sirota, Kostovicova, Juanchich, & Dewberry, pre-print, for the absence of effect when using a verbal CRT without numeric component).

A pdf of the research is here.

Axiological futurism: The systematic study of the future of values

J. Danaher

Futures

Volume 132, September 2021

Abstract

Human values seem to vary across time and space. What implications does this have for the future of human value? Will our human and (perhaps) post-human offspring have very different values from our own? Can we study the future of human values in an insightful and systematic way? This article makes three contributions to the debate about the future of human values. First, it argues that the systematic study of future values is both necessary in and of itself and an important complement to other future-oriented inquiries. Second, it sets out a methodology and a set of methods for undertaking this study. Third, it gives a practical illustration of what this ‘axiological futurism’ might look like by developing a model of the axiological possibility space that humans are likely to navigate over the coming decades.

Highlights

• Outlines a new field of inquiry: axiological futurism.

• Defends the role of axiological futurism in understanding technology in society.

• Develops a set of methods for undertaking this inquiry into the axiological future.

• Presents a model for understanding the impact of AI, robotics and ICTs on human values.

From the Conclusion

In conclusion, axiological futurism is the systematic and explicit inquiry into the axiological possibility space for future human (and post-human) civilisations. Axiological futurism is necessary because, given the history of axiological change and variation, it is very unlikely that our current axiological systems will remain static and unchanging in the future. Axiological futurism is also important because it is complementary to other futurological inquiries. While it might initially seem that axiological futurism cannot be a systematic inquiry, this is not the case. Axiological futurism is an exercise in informed speculation.

The paper is here.

Immoral actors’ meta-perceptions are accurate but overly positive

Lees, J. M., Young, L., & Waytz, A.

(2021, August 16).

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/j24tn

Abstract

We examine how actors think others perceive their immoral behavior (moral meta-perception) across a diverse set of real-world moral violations. Utilizing a novel methodology, we solicit written instances of actors’ immoral behavior (N_total=135), measure motives and meta-perceptions, then provide these accounts to separate samples of third-party observers (N_total=933), using US convenience and representative samples (N_actor-observer pairs=4,615). We find that immoral actors can accurately predict how they are perceived, how they are uniquely perceived relative to the average immoral actor, and how they are misperceived. Actors who are better at judging the motives of other immoral actors also have more accurate meta-perceptions. Yet accuracy is accompanied by two distinct biases: overestimating the positive perceptions others’ hold, and believing one’s motives are more clearly perceived than they are. These results contribute to a detailed account of the multiple components underlying both accuracy and bias in moral meta-perception.

From the General Discussion

These results collectively suggest that individuals who have engaged in immoral behavior can accurately forecast how others will react to their moral violations.  

Studies 1-4 also found similar evidence for accuracy in observers’ judgments of the unique motives of immoral actors, suggesting that individuals are able to successfully perspective-take with those who have committed moral violations. Observers higher in cognitive ability (Studies 2-3) and empathic concern (Studies 2-4) were consistently more accurate in these judgments, while observers higher in Machiavellianism (Studies 2-4) and the propensity to engage in unethical workplace behaviors (Studies 3-4) were consistently less accurate. This latter result suggests that more frequently engaging in immoral behavior does not grant one insight into the moral minds of others, and in fact is associated with less ability to understand the motives behind others’ immoral behavior.

Despite strong evidence for meta-accuracy (and observer accuracy) across studies, actors’ accuracy in judging how they would be perceived was accompanied by two judgment biases.  Studies 1-4 found evidence for a transparency bias among immoral actors (Gilovich et al., 1998), meaning that actors overestimated how accurately observers would perceive their self-reported moral motives. Similarly, in Study 4 an examination of actors’ meta-perception point estimates found evidence for a positivity bias. Actors systematically overestimate the positive attributions, and underestimate the negative attributions, made of them and their motives. In fact, the single meta-perception found to be the most inaccurate in its average point estimate was the meta-perception of harm caused, which was significantly underestimated.

The research is here.