March Flashcards
Utilitarianism author date
John Stuart Mill 1863
Hello world author date
Hannah Fry 2018
4 types of algorithm
Prioritisation
Classification
Association
Filtering
Kadoodle experiment scientists year conclusions
Robert Epstein
Ronald Robertson
2015
After a few minutes participants 12% more likely to vote for favoured candidate.
‘The search engine manipulation effect (SEME) and its possible impact on the outcomes of elections’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 112, no. 33, 2015, pp. E4512–21, http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/E4512.
Linda J. Skitka, Kathleen Mosier and Mark D. Burdick, ‘Accountability and automation bias’, International Journal of Human–Computer Studies, vol. 52, 2000, pp. 701–17, http://lskitka.people.uic.edu/IJHCS2000.pdf.
We end up believing that algorithms have superior judgement and we are unaware of our own biases that result.
Russian military officer who avoided nuclear war
Staislav Petrov 1983 26 september
Alton towers tragedy
2015
2 girls lost legs
Engineers had just fixed a fault. Left test car on track. Algorithm detected a dangerous obstacle and set off alarm, stopping the ride. Engineers overruled.
Algorithm aversion
Though we tend to trust algorithms we don’t understand, as soon as they make a mistake we tend to overcriticise them. People are less tolerant of a machine’s mistakes than their own, even when their own mistakes are bigger.
Insurance company used data from supermarket loyalty scheme to discover that people who buy what are less likely to claim on home insurance
Fennel. Home cooks are more houseproud and careful.
Peter Thiel data broker company
Palantir 2003 $20bn
Sesame credit
Chinese scoring system based on internet data. Score between 350-950. Over 600 gets you a special credit card. 750 is a fast tracked visa for Europe. Mandatory in 2020
Elizabeth Fry point about judges and algorithms
Algorithms imperfect and currently amplify bias. However judges are biased and manipulable. Algorithms have potential to be more objective and fairer.
An algorithm designed for specificity will have…
Few false positives but some false negatives.
An algorithm designed for sensitivity will have…
Few false negatives and some false positives.
Competition between algorithms and pathologists
CAMELYON16
HUMAN: 96% accurate no false positives.
Neural nets 92% considerable false positive rate.
Nun Alzheimer’s study
Over 600 nuns studied Whether a nun developed Alzheimer’s or not easily predictable by the literacy demonstrated in letters written in their early 20s
Kant dates
1724-1804 (79)
Kant three formulations of the categorical imperative
1 Universal law of nature formula
2 Humanity formula
3 Autonomy formula
Lady Godiva
Rode naked through Coventry as part of a bargain with her husband so he would remove the taxation on the city. Phrase peeping tom originates as he looks even though she asked the whole town to stay indoors and shut their curtains.
Marx. Man is…
… a creative labourer.
Lisanne Bainbridge 1983 psychologist big idea
If you build a machine to improve human performance it will lead to a reduction in human ability
R D Laing study of family
Applied game theoretical approach to analyse and quantify the effects of a range of behaviours, concluding that even ostensibly loving actions are tools for exerting control and power over others.
PredPol
Algorithm that predicts crime hotspots based on patterns in reported crime.
Study of novelty in films
Sameet Sreenivasan 2013 analysis of IMDB tagging. Showed that increased novelty up to 0.8 led to higher success. But after that it was certain failure.
Ways NHS managers met targets during new labour
Surgery waiting times - treat quick jobs first like bunyons and long jobs last like cancer.
Waiting time in A&E - hello nurses. Patients count as seen because they have been greeted.
Number of patients on Trolleys -take wheels off
Patients in corridors - renamed them wards
Armand LeRoi evolutionary biologist comments on pop music
“there’s an intrinsic boredom threshold in the population. There’s just a tension that builds as people need something new”
Bach AI test
1997 University of Oregon. Organised by Douglas Hofstadter. David Cope’s AI (EMI) beat genuine Bach and human impersonation to convince audience it was genuine Bach.
David Cope (EMI creator) on creativity
Creativity is just finding an association between two things which ordinarily would not seem related
Cnidarians
Nye dair ians
Jellyfish
Anemones
Corals
Do have nervous systems
The Sad Clown
Pierrot
Dorsal stream
Ventral stream
Dorsal - vision for action guidance
Ventral - vision for categorisation, description, conscious experience.
Blindsight case
DF David Milner Melvyn Goodale 1988 carbon monoxide poisoning from water heater Ventral and dorsal stream discovery
Global Workspace Theory Philosopher
Bernard Baars
Stanislas Dehaene
Vulnerable world hypothesis
Nick bostrom 2018
Some scientific discoveries may lead to the fast or immediate destruction of life on earth
Must surveil all action and have benign authority in place to immediately prevent any use of such technology.
E.g. easy nukes and agi?
Philosopher who foreshadowed Mandeville’s fable of the bees
Erasmus human folly enables all roles in society. E.g. without gossip there would be no need to communicate
Panjandrum
A person who has or claims to have a great deal of influence or authority
Bernard Mandeville human nature development of morals
Share with all animals that our moral sense is trained into us by parents and society. Humans differ because we internalise a self image based on how others view us. We are approval seeking animals.
Vygotsky language
Language essential for complex thought. Enables organised ideas.
Scientific word for ageing
Senescence
Evolutionary rationale for senescence
Natural selection rejects mutuations that cause problems early in life before those that cause problems later in life.
It also selects for mutations that have benefits in early life even if they may be detrimental later in life.
Coral, anemones, and jellyfish family
Cnidarians
Name of search engine in SEME 2015 Epstein and Robertson study
Kadoodle
Word for a person with influence and authority or someone who believes they are
Panjandrum
Thales
Anaximander
Anaximenes
The Milesian School
6 century BC
Thales fundamental principle
Water
Anaximander fundamental principle
The unbounded, apeiron
Anaximenes fundamental principle
Air
School founded by Parmenides
The Eleatics
Parmenides main ideas
Only possible to say what is. Change and ex nihilo creation is impossible. All is one, uniform, indivisible.
First rationalist? First idealist?
Aristotle four causes
Material cause - what thing is made of
Formal cause - structure of the thing
Efficient cause - what made the thing
Final cause - purpose of the thing
The first cynic
Diogenes of Sinope
Cynic etymology and beliefs
Greek for Dog
Live in accordance with nature
Hellenistic dates and schools
31BCE
Cynics
Stoics
Sceptics
Well known cynics
Diogenes of Sinope
Crates of Thebes
Hipparchia of Maronea. (First female philosopher)
First Stoic
Zeno of Citium student of Cynic Crates
Preferred indifferents
Life, death. Reputation, ill repute, pleasure, exertion. Wealth, poverty. Health and sickness. The only good is virtue. Nothing else guarantees a good life. The stoics were indifferent.
Founder of Sceptics and date
Pyrrho 300BC
Carneades show off sceptic
Lecture in favour of justice, then against the next day. Equally convincing in both.
Agrippa’s trilemma 1CE
1 infinite regress of justification
2 dogmatic assertion
3 reason in a circle
Atomists
Leucippus of Miletus
Democritus
Epicurus school date and ideas
The Garden 3rd century BCE Death not to be feared Materialist Gods not involved (polydeist) Pleasure to be sought
Epicurus arguments against fear of death
No subject of harm argument - no one to suffer after death
Symmetry argument - do we anguish about ourselves before birth? No. Death is like that.
Ultracrepidarian
Uninformed know it all
Uninformed know it all
Ultracrepidarian
Aristotle’s school
The Lyceum
Augustine dates and location
354-430 CE Carthage, Bishop of Hippo
Augustine key ideas
Humanity born into original sin due to Adam’s disobedience.
No way to work our way out of sin through good deeds.
Can only be redeemed through God’s grace.
Famous Neoplatonist
Plotinus
Plotinus main ideas
Heavenly realm is far more perfect than ours.
All being is caused by the one. It emanates from it by necessity and is less perfect.
Maimonides greatest work
The Guide for the Perplexed
Maimonides main ideas
God never appeared or experienced directly. Bible is metaphorical here.
Reason more important than biblical text.
Avicenna Ibn Dina dates
980-1037
The Scholastics
Aquinas, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Anselm
Century Aristotle is rediscovered by the Scholastics
12th
Anselm most famous contribution
Ontological argument
Anselm dates
1033-1109
Aquinas dates
1225-1274
Erasmus full name and dates
Desiderius Erasmus (c.1466–1536)
Machiavelli dates
1469-1525
Machiavelli key ideas
A virtuous leader may not be a good leader.
Led to separation of moral philosophy and political philosophy
Bacon main ideas
Knowledge is power - not to be sought for its own sake, but for the benefit of humanity
The four false idols - tribe, cave, marketplace, theatre
Eliminative induction
Bacon four idols
Fallacies
Idols of the tribe - common to all e.g. confirmation bias
Idols of the cave - unique to individual. e.g. preference for novelty or tradition.
Idols of the marketplace - mistakes due to language
Idols of the theatre - mistakes due to philosophical tradition
Trial of Galileo
1633
Scientific Revolution key dates
1522 Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigates the globe
1543 Nicolaus Copernicus publishes On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs
1609 Galileo Galilei builds his first telescope
1619 Kepler publishes Harmonies of the World
1620 Francis Bacon publishes Novum Organum
1632 Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published
1637 René Descartes’ Discourse on Method is published
1666 Robert Boyle publishes Origines of Formes and Qualities
1687 Isaac Newton publishes Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy
1704 Newton publishes Opticks
1727 Newton dies
