Tony Beavers
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
The University of Evansville
Affiliated Faculty, Cognitive Science
Indiana University
Research Interests: Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence; Philosophy of Cognitive Science; Philosophy of Information and Information Technology; History of Philosophy (Ancient, Modern, and Early Continental); Meta-ethics
Recent and Upcoming Academic Activity
Paper with Eli McGraw, "Preliminary Clues and Caveats concerning Artificial Consciousness from a Phenomenological Perspective" - In progress.
Presentation: "On the Conditions of Explainability for Explainable Network AI" - The Midwest Cognitive Science Conference , May 9th-11th, University of Ohio.
In this talk, I will set a relatively high bar for the proper specificity and level of explanation needed to claim that network AI is sufficiently explained, describe who the target audience should be to pitch such an explanation, and lay out the terms in which this explanation needs to be expressed.
To qualify as explained, the basic principles of AI must be fully comprehensible to any earnest high school graduate wishing to take a year to learn them. The demonstration, I will argue, then needs to be expressed in terms of cellular computing, a methodology fully within the reach of the target audience. Subsequently, the proper specificity and level of explanation needed to claim that an AI is explained will turn out to be at the level of the system architecture itself, not at the level of an abstract algorithm.
Due to the target audience and the time frame of one year for understanding, I will further stipulate that in order for AI to be considered “explained,” we must also furnish a pedagogy for one-year’s instruction dedicated to learning how to interpret networks built using this type of architecture.
Running in the background of these proposals are my contentions that much of the existing successes of network AI can be realized on such an explanatory architecture and that the part of it that cannot is “monstrous and mutant,” something to be avoided at all costs.
Presentation: "Modeling Cognition with Cellular Computing: On the Epistemic Importance of Seeing What You're Doing" - The Undergraduate Cognitive Science Student Organization, Indiana University, 4/3/2024.
In this presentation, I will show how to model some elementary features of cognition using cellular computing. We will look at both engineered and associative networks designed by this method to demonstrate how associativity can be used to learn the ABCs, basic sequences, and even a bit of natural language competence without parsing. The main takeaway will concern the value of (literally) seeing how associativity can account for these basic cognitive operations.
Presentation: "Changing Paradigms in Cognitive Science: Emerging Implications from Research with Dynamic Associative Networks" - GeoLab Meeting - Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University, 3/18/2024.
In this presentation, I will address changing paradigms in cognitive science by looking at some architectural features of dynamic associative networks and say a few words about what they imply for eliminating the inside-outside distinction from the theoretical framework of cognitive science. Along these lines, I will suggest that there are AI reasons to push in the direction of more biologically-motivated enactivist paradigms and that doing so continues the effort to reframe central questions concerning cognition that may persistently stand in our way.
Presentation: "How LLMs Undermine the Last Bastion of Cartesianism and Why It Matters Today" - GeoLab Meeting - Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University, 2/5/2024.
Is cognitive science still recovering from a 350 year old mistake? In this presentation, I will propose that, in addition to argument elsewhere, LLMs suggest 1) that the representational theory of mind is false, 2) that the information-transfer model of communication is false, and 3) that there is no symbol grounding problem to solve. I will do so specifically by addressing Descartes' criteria for mindedness, which includes among other linguistic competences, the ability to sequence speech. If Descartes knew about LLMs, he would have never been pushed to dualism in the first place and would have continued the trajectory that history provided him, one based on framing questions of cognition as guidance control problems.
The reason this matters to us today is that even though science has jettisoned any form of Cartesian dualism, it nonetheless often preserves a Cartesian notion of some interior private, mental space, though now physically realized and modified to allow an escape into the world through the body. This, I will submit, is not likely a picture Descartes would have endorsed if he had LLMs before him: the three matters above are thus shown to be forced by a specific model of cognition, a physicalized version of Descartes, now undone by current technology, thus signaling that we are at an important moment in the history of philosophical and psychological systems.
To be clear, under no circumstances will I argue that LLMs are minded. The issue is best understood along these lines: If LLMs pass Descartes' test, then more than just dualism is jetisoned. The model of self as contained in a "cabinet of consciousness" is also jetisoned. Several important consequences follow.