The Philosopher & The News Alexis Papazoglou

Chat GPT, an AI powered chat-bot, has become the world’s fastest growing application, with over 100 million users in the first month of its launch. Even its harshest critics concede that when interacting with Chat GPT, it can seem as if one is talking to an intelligent machine. But, the standard critique goes, that’s just an illusion. Chat GPT isn’t in fact intelligent. It doesn’t understand the questions it’s asked, or the answers it gives. 
But, what if this critique is wrong? What if our elevation of human understanding to something that machines like Chat GPT can’t reach is mere narcissism, or worse, a philosophical mistake? What if, what current AI can do isn’t really possible without some robust level of understanding? 

Reuben Cohn- Gordon is an AI researcher at the Iniversity of British Columbia and UC Berkeley, and recently wrote an article entitled GPT’s very Inhuman Mind for Noema magazine, in which he argues against the standard critique of large language models like Chat GPT, namely that they lack any form of intelligence and understanding. Reuben uses a number of ideas from 20th century philosophy in approaching this, as well as intriguing metaphors from Classic Roman literature. 

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This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journalm founded in 1923. Check out the latest issue of The Philosopher and its online events series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On May 6th, the coronation of King Charles III took place in Westminster Abbey in London, making him officially the head of state of the United Kingdom, the head of the Church of England, and of the UK’s Armed Forces. It also made him head of Nation of sever other counties, including Canada and Australia. 


According to polls, more than half the British citizens seem to approve of the monarchy and the pomp and pageantry that goes with it. But can a monarch ever really have democratic legitimacy? Does the monarchy perpetuate an outdated and unjust social hierarchy in British society? And even though today the role is meant to be merely ceremonial, is it really possible for the monarch to be politically neutral?

Alex O’Conor is the host of the  YouTube channel Cosmic Skeptic, with over half a million subscribers,  which is dedicated to the publication of philosophical debates in an accessible format.


He is also an international public speaker and debater, having debated ethics, religion, and politics with a number of high-profile opponents before college audiences, on radio talk shows and on national television.


Alex published a video essay soon after the death of Queen Elizabeth entitled Abolish the Monarchy, and went recently head to head with Piers Morgan over why most young people today would prefer an elected head of state, rather than a hereditary monarch. 

If you enjoyed the episode, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journalm founded in 1923. Check out the latest issue of The Philosopher and its online events series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On March 22nd, the Future of Life Institute,  a nonprofit organization focussed on reducing existential risks facing humanity, and in particular existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence (AI), published an open letter entitled Pause Giant AI Experiments. Its signatories included tech luminaries such as Elon Musk, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Its opening sentences read:
“AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity, as shown by extensive research and acknowledged by top AI labs… Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources.”
But given the kind of AI available today, are these kinds of concern justified? Is Chat GPT, for example, really a kind of intelligence? And if so, are governments capable of taming it and channelling its capabilities for the benefit of humanity, rather than its destruction?

John Naughton is a Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), University of Cambridge and Emeritus Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University. He is also the technology columnist of the Observer newspaper.


Pease leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and its spring online lecture series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

February 24th marked the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Some still blame the expansion of NATO in Russia’s neighbourhood as the deeper cause of this war.  Others see it as Putin’s mad personal plan to go down in the history books. But some are pointing the finger to something much deeper than any of that: the Russian soul. 
A concept that originated in Russia’s literary tradition of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and other great authors, is seen as animating today’s national exceptionalism, fuelling Putin’s speeches. 
But how straightforward is it draw a causal link between a country’s cultural past, and the politics of today? Is it really ideas than animate history, or should we look to material conditions for a better explanation of events?

Josephine von Zitzewitz is a Lecturer in Russian at the University of Oxford, and recently wrote an article entitled The Uses and Abuses of the Russian Soul: The weaponization of Russian Identity, in which she explores the limits of the idea that Russian culture and literature have a role to play in the war against Ukraine.


Pease leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and its spring online lecture series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On January 21, 11 people were killed in a mass shooting in Monterey Park, near Los Angeles, California. Two days later, 7 people were killed in another shooting in Half Moon Bay, a small city on the coast south of San Francisco. It was the 37th mass shooting in the United States in 2023, only 24 days since the year began. 
So why is it that despite these repeated incidents, gun laws in the United States are becoming less rather than more restrictive? What is the ideology that is driving America’s love of guns? Is it a love of liberty, and the constitution, along with an instinctive suspicion of any state attempt to limit access to guns? Or is something deeper, more disturbing, behind the supreme court’s recent decisions to undo laws that regulated access to guns, coupled with a huge recent increase in gun ownership?

Suzanne Schneider, Is Deputy Director and Core Faculty at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, specializing in political theory and history of the modern Middle East. She is the author of , most recently, The Apocalypse and the End of History: Modern Jihad and the Crisis of Liberalism, and her comment pieces in places like The New Republic and The Washington Post have tackled this issue of gun ownership in the United States, and bring a perspective that goes beyond the usual clichés about liberty and the constitution.

Pease leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and its spring online lecture series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride

On June 24, the US Supreme court overruled a landmark decision: Roe v Wade. For nearly 50 years, abortion was a constitutional right in the Unites States. No more. “The constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.” Read the decision. 
But quite apart from the legal argument, everyone knew this was at heart deeply political decision. Three of the judges in the majority opinion were appointed by the previous president, Donald Trump, who had explicitly promised his voters he would appoint pro-life judges when given the chance. 
So how should we understand this political decision? Why is the right, always brandishing liberty as its central value, so happy to restrict the freedoms of millions of women? Why does the party who wants a small state, and is averse to government regulation, so happy for the state to intervene in the private lives of citizens, and regulate one of the most personal choices one can make: whether to have a child or not? Is the Republican party simply riddled with internal contradictions when it comes to freedom? Or do they simply understand freedom in an altogether different way?

Toby Buckle is the producer and host of The Political Philosophy Podcast, and the editor of a new collection of essays entitled What is Freedom? Conversations with Historians, Philosophers, and Activists, from Oxford University Press. 
Pease leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts.

This podcast is created in partnership with The Philosopher, the UK’s longest running public philosophy journal. Check out the spring issue of the philosopher, and its spring online lecture series: https://www.thephilosopher1923.org

Artwork by Nick Halliday

Music by Rowan Mcilvride