Posts

This community post documents an ai-phi causerie on hopes, fears, trust, understanding, and regulation in the age of generative AI. The discussion examines a widening gap between engineering realities and public expectations: engineers treat complex systems as provisional and fallible, while public discourse often demands certainty about safety, control, and governance. A central theme is that many current AI systems are emergent rather than fully predictable, which complicates accountability and regulation. The text also explores how hope and fear are intertwined, with the same capabilities that promise augmentation and discovery also raising concerns about manipulation, misaligned autonomy, and poorly governed optimization. Trust appears as a practical, fragile construct built through repeated use rather than deep understanding, and the post questions whether fluent language can encourage misplaced deference to AI systems. The article then brings in member contributions that extend the conversation across agency, persuasion, and ethical evaluation, emphasizing that conceptual clarity must evolve alongside technological change.

We’re pleased to share an upcoming event organised by one of our community members, Alexandra Boucherifi-Kornmann: PROXIMA, a new European biennale dedicated to the intersections of art, artificial intelligence, and augmentation technologies, supported by the French Ministry of Culture. Starting in January 2026, in France and abroad, PROXIMA will bring together exhibitions and round tables exploring how AI and so-called augmentation technologies (augmented reality, mapping, QR codes, mixed reality) are reshaping pictorial creation.

From blogs to sketches to new channels: celebrating the many ways ai-phi members turn philosophical curiosity into creative expression.

We’re thrilled to launch the third edition of ai-phi — ai-phi 3.0 — with a new visual identity and a few other surprises. This year marks a new chapter in our community’s journey, and with it comes a transformation in how we present ourselves. Our Creative Director Sébastien Marino has crafted a stunning new visual identity that’s both timeless and deeply rooted in the spirit of ai-phi. At the heart of the new design is a symbol he named Double Conscience — an abstract mark that evokes duality, tension, and reflection. It's inspired by the textures of prehistoric art, the loops of circuitry, and the unspoken language of perception. "It is not a message. It is the shape a question leaves behind." This is more than a logo — it’s a visual philosophy. Sébastien’s creative process combined historical research, linocut textures, and generative scripts to produce a layered, evolving visual language. You’ll see it unfold in our talks, slides, social media, and this very website. But visuals aren't the only thing we've been rethinking. ai-phi 3.0 will bring more than sessions and seminars — we have a few collaborative and unexpected projects brewing. One of them is a special publication. Another? Well, you’ll have to wait and see. We’ve also just launched a new presence on social media — including a dedicated LinkedIn page. ai-phi has always been about sparking conversations at the intersection of philosophy and AI. With ai-phi 3.0, we’re renewing that commitment…

A topic as broad as reasoning needs to be cut down to a more manageable size. To facilitate this, we published a set of questions before the causerie. These questions were: ⁠What is reasoning in an AI system? How can we know that an AI system is reasoning? What is missing from existing AI systems that prevent them from reasoning effectively? This served to both prompt thought and to be used as the basis for creating materials for the causerie to help guide the conversation. A collection of relevant ideas were presented during the causerie, not to showcase expertise, but to provide a common ground for discussion. The focus was on providing many on-ramps to different concepts that people could engage with, which is important given our diverse audience. This post contains an article written by Michael Anslow outlining the ai-phi community discussion during our causerie on reasoning, as well as individual contributions from multiple ai-phi members.

This talk is part of the EIC-funded ASTOUND project, which investigates the impact of artificial consciousness. Johannes Kleiner will address the possibility of artificial phenomenology—the application of phenomenology to artificial systems, most notably artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Can we, as human beings, develop an understanding of the phenomenology of artificial systems, if some such phenomenology exists? The goal of this talk is to explain how recent developments in mathematical phenomenology (Prentner) and objective phenomenology (Lee) might afford a positive answer to this question. In providing a sketch of the resulting research program, he will also highlight why and where artificial phenomenology is needed in understanding and doing justice to the postbiotic conscious systems of the future. Johannes Kleiner is a physicist and mathematician who works on mathematical topics in consciousness science.

We are organising a mini-workshop on the topic of: Honesty in LLMs. The objective being to produce a first, small, collective output, and identify avenues for further research. The workshop is open to all ai-phi members: check the mailing list and whatsapp group for more details and further announcements.

Join the ASTOUND team at ENS! We're hiring a Research Assistant. This is a unique chance to contribute to pioneering research at the intersection of Philosophy and AI, focusing on the ethical implications of cutting edge chatbots.

Our ai-phi website is up and running! A huge thanks to Théis Bazin for all his hard work in setting this up! ❤️ You can look forward to the latest news and outputs from the ai-phi community as we hold more sessions and continue to dive into the intersection of AI and Philosophy.