Veranstaltungen | Prof. Heinzelmann

"N. N."

by Daniel Schunk (Economics, Mainz)

| 7. Februar 2025, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |

Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg

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"N. N."

by Christian Kietzmann (Philosophy, Leipzig)

| 31. Januar 2025, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |

Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg

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"N. N."

by Kellie Owens (Population Health, New York University)

| 24. Januar 2025, 15:00-16:15 Uhr |

Screening in Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg

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"What does it mean to be healthy? It’s complicated …"

by Pascale Willemsen (Philosophy, University of Zürich)

| 17. Januar 2025, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |

Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg

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What does it mean for an organism to be healthy? Over the past five decades, philosophers of medicine and medical professionals have engaged in considerable debate regarding the definition of “health.” Traditionally, there have been two main positions: 1.) negativism, which defines health as the absence of disease; and 2.) positivism claims that health is the presence of some additional positive state or ability. It has been pointed out that the debate has reached somewhat of a stalemate and that there has been little to no progress with traditional philosophical methods, such as conceptual analysis, explicature, and the method of cases. In addition, the concept of health might be in flux and subject to change, and different groups of speakers may mean different things when they call someone or something healthy. In reaction to the methodological challenge, some scholars have suggested supplementing our traditional toolkit with empirical methods to make progress. Some first empirical investigations already suggest that the term health is strongly associated with leading a healthy lifestyle – an understanding that is orthogonal to both negativism and positivism.

In this talk, I present a systematic, experimental investigation into the folk concept of health. Data from four experimental studies suggest that neither negativism nor positivism is correct – and also the newly-established lifestyle view does not get it entirely right. Instead, the folk concept of health seems to have multiple senses, one of which is related to the absence of diseases, the other to leading a healthy lifestyle. What unites these different senses is that “being healthy” is not an objective fact, but a highly evaluative judgment. These findings challenge traditional definitions of health and raise a series of practical issues: How can we make sure that philosophers of medicine, medical professionals and ordinary people speak the same language when they talk about health?

"A Method for Philosophy: AI Philosophy"

by Vincent C. Müller (Philosophy, FAU Erlangen Nürnberg)

with Guido Löhr (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)

| 13. Dezember 2024, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |

Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg

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On the background of the general problem of philosophical methodology, we identify a new tool for the philosophical toolbox: AI. We propose that not only can AI learn from philosophy, but philosophy can learn from AI, too: It is both ways. This applies particularly to conceptual analysis, which can be advanced by asking what would be required for an AI system to fall under the concept we are discussing; call this “AI Philosophy”. This method would allow progress in the philosophy of AI, rather than mere application, and in general philosophy it avoids anthropocentrism, and gives us access to a testable environment for our philosophical argumentation. Given the wide range of features we can consider for AI systems, this method allows us to cover a wide range of philosophical issues, especially in the philosophy of mind, language, epistemology, and ethics.

About Vincent C. Müller:

http://www.sophia.de/

"Reflective Equilibration Solves The Paradox of Diachronic AI Safety"

by Gregor Betz (Philosophy, KIT, Karlsruhe)

| 8. November 2024, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |

Location: Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg

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The dynamic nature of our factual knowledge of, and our normative outlook on the world give rise to two conflicting safety requirements of advanced AI systems: (i) adaptability and (ii) resilience. The case for adaptability is straightforward: Safe AI systems must be able to learn novel facts and correct outdated or erroneous beliefs: acting on false information is likely to lead to bad outcomes. In addition, it’s an important safety feature that AI systems be able to continuously learn from human feedback, e.g. by adjusting the way they interpret and apply general principles of helpfulness or harm avoidance. The case for resilience seems, however, equally strong: It would be highly problematic for AI systems to autonomously modify, or even entirely drop basic normative tenets they have been initially designed to follow. Moreover and more specifically, safe AI systems must be able to resist manipulation attempts such as adversarial model editing or malicious prompt hacking, which typically try to "fool" the model into accepting presumably novel facts. I will argue that this paradoxical situation, where safety requirements pull in opposite directions, can be eased by stipulating that dynamic AI learning be guided by reason. To this end, I present and discuss two computational studies on rational belief revision of LLMs through reflective equilibration.

Note that talks but not Q&A may be recorded.

About Gregor Betz:

www.gregor.betz.de

"Preimplantation polygenic testing: a comeback of determinism and eugenics?"

by Alejandra Petino Zappala (German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg)

| 25. Oktober 2024, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |

Location:Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg

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Since the Human Genome Project, the role of genetic information in our lives has changed dramatically. Genetic testing, originally used to detect or prevent congenital, often deadly or incapacitating diseases, has shifted to the management of risk for common adult conditions in the general population, and even to health optimization. Polygenic genetic testing, now available to clients via the Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) market, promises to estimate traits like weight or physical endurance, or the risk of complex conditions like diabetes or hypercholesterolemia. As these traits are affected by the interaction of several genomic variants and environmental factors, companies offering these tests promise to guide consumers toward a healthier lifestyle tailored to their genome. These genomic technologies have recently expanded to the assessment of embryos in the context of In Vitro Fertilization with the launch of preimplantation polygenic testing (PGT-P). PGT-P companies promise parents undergoing fertility treatments to use their embryos’ genomic information to predict their risk of developing common, multifactorial diseases like diabetes or psychiatric disorders in adulthood. This information results in a ‘ranking’ of the embryos, to help prioritize the “best” for transfer and obtaining “the healthiest child possible”. Moreover, these companies have raised the possibility of offering predictions on IQ, height, or skin color in the future if such tests become socially acceptable. In this talk, I will show that, despite being based on the same technology as the DTC tests offered to adults, the discourse of the companies offering PGT-P downplays the importance of the environment and one’s own agency in health outcomes. This marks a return to genetic determinism, previously relaxed by the ideas of agency and risk management typical of neoliberal biopolitics. I will also argue that the discourse on PGT-P has reinvigorated eugenicist ideas in the public sphere. These dynamics are sustained by an unwarranted expansion of the concept of ‘eugenics’, coupled with misleading analogies between embryo selection and individual or public health interventions, such as vaccination or sanitation. As a result, the idea of embryo selection is first equated to other kinds of reproductive or life choices and then presented as an ethical obligation both for parents and the whole of society.

About Alejandra Petino Zappala:

https://www.life-science-lab.org/cms/index.php/1649.html

"Coherence and Incoherence"

by Daniel Fogal (Philosophy, New York University)

with Olle Risberg (Uppsala)

| 22. Oktober 2024, 18:00-20:00 Uhr c.t. |

Location: Hegelsaal, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg

In the recent literature on coherence and structural rationality, it is widely assumed that sets of attitudes are coherent just in case they are not incoherent. In particular, the two most popular kinds of views of incoherence—those centered around wide scope rational requirements and those centered around guaranteed failures of some normatively significant kind—rely on this assumption. We argue that this assumption should be rejected because it fails to capture the difference between positively coherent attitudes and random unrelated ones. We also formulate and defend an alternative support-centric view of coherence and incoherence which captures this difference and has several additional advantages.

In case of interest (pre-read not required), the full draft is available here (under review; please treat confidentially)

About Daniel Fogal:

"Interventions to reduce the spread of misinformation: Two online experiments"

by Natalie Gold (Philosophy, London School of Economics, and Head of Trials, Verian)

| 18. Oktober 2024, 14:00-16:15 Uhr |

Screening: at Room 117, Institute of Philosophy, Schulgasse 6, 69117 Heidelberg

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Misinformation can have a profound detrimental impact on populations’ wellbeing. While previous experiments testing interventions have used perception- or intention-based outcome measures, in these two online experiments we presented participants with real-life misinformation posts in a social media platform simulation and measured their engagement, a more ecologically valid approach. The first is a large UK-based online experiment (n = 2430), where we assessed the performance of false tag and inoculation interventions in protecting against different forms of misinformation. Our pre-registered mixed-effects models indicated that both interventions reduced engagement with misinformation, but inoculation was most effective. The second is a pilot with n = 1000 Singaporean citizens and permanent residents, where we assessed the performance of two different inoculation interventions: a carousel and a video. We found that the carousel reduced positive reactions to misinformation posts, while the video increased discernment of disinformation (measured using the signal detection index d-prime).

About Natalie Gold: