Recent research has identified a tension between the Safety principle that knowledge is belief without risk of error, and the Closure principle that knowledge is preserved by competent deduction. Timothy Williamson reconciles Safety and Closure by proposing that when an agent deduces a conclusion from some premises, the agent’s method for believing the conclusion includes their method for believing each premise. We argue that this theory is untenable because it implies problematically easy epistemic access to one’s methods. Several (...) possible solutions are explored and rejected. (shrink)

Knowledge demands more than accuracy: epistemologists are broadly agreed that those who know are non-accidentally right, satisfying some kind of safety condition. However, it is hard to formulate any adequate account of safety, and harder still to explain exactly why we care about it. This paper approaches the problem by looking at a concrete human cognitive capacity, face recognition, to see where epistemic safety shows up in it. Drawing on new models in artificial intelligence, and making a (...) case that human face recognition is relevantly similar, I argue that safety is a natural feature of successful generalization. The concluding section of the paper applies this lesson to the problem of our intuitive recognition of knowledge. (shrink)

Ernest Sosa has made and continues to make major contributions to a wide variety of topics in epistemology. In this paper I discuss some of his core ideas about the nature of knowledge and scepticism. I start with a discussion of the safety account of knowledge – a view he has championed and further developed over the years. I continue with some questions concerning the role of the concept of an epistemic virtue for our understanding of knowledge. Safety (...) and virtue hang very closely together for Sosa. All this easily leads to some thoughts on epistemic scepticism and on Sosa's stance on this. (shrink)

In this paper I will offer a comprehensive defense of the safety account of knowledge against counterexamples that have been recently put forward. In Sect. 2, I will discuss different versions of safety, arguing that a specific variant of method-relativized safety is the most plausible. I will then use this specific version of safety to respond to counterexamples in the recent literature. In Sect. 3, I will address alleged examples of safe beliefs that still constitute Gettier (...) cases. In Sect. 4, I will discuss alleged examples of unsafe knowledge. In Sect. 5, I will address alleged cases of safe belief that do not constitute knowledge for non-Gettier reasons. My overall goal is to show that there are no successful counterexamples to robust anti-luck epistemology and to highlight some major presuppositions of my reply. (shrink)

Safety principles in epistemology are often hailed as providing us with an explanation of why we fail to have knowledge in Gettier cases and lottery examples, while at the same time allowing for the fact that we know the negations of sceptical hypotheses. In a recent paper, Sinhababu and Williams have produced an example—the Backward Clock—that is meant to spell trouble for safety accounts of knowledge. I argue that the Backward Clock case is, in fact, unproblematic for the (...) more sophisticated formulations of safety in the literature. However, I then proceed to construct two novel examples that turn out problematic for those formulations—one that provides us with a lottery-style case of safe ignorance and one that is a straightforward case of unsafe knowledge. If these examples succeed, then safety as it is usually conceived in the current debate cannot account for ignorance in all Gettier and lottery-style cases, and neither is it a necessary condition for knowledge. I conclude from these troublesome examples that modal epistemologists ought to embrace a much more simple and non-reductive version of safety, according to which the notion of similarity between possible worlds that determines in which worlds the subject must believe truly is an epistemic notion that cannot be defined or reduced to notions independent of knowledge. The resulting view is shown to also lead to desirable results with respect to lottery cases, certain quantum phenomena, and a puzzling case involving a cautious brain-in-a-vat. (shrink)

Modal knowledge accounts that are based on standards possible-worlds semantics face well-known problems when it comes to knowledge of necessities. Beliefs in necessities are trivially sensitive and safe and, therefore, trivially constitute knowledge according to these accounts. In this paper, I will first argue that existing solutions to this necessity problem, which accept standard possible-worlds semantics, are unsatisfactory. In order to solve the necessity problem, I will utilize an unorthodox account of counterfactuals, as proposed by Nolan, on which we also (...) consider impossible worlds. Nolan’s account for counterpossibles delivers the intuitively correct result for sensitivity i.e. S’s belief is sensitive in intuitive cases of knowledge of necessities and insensitive in intuitive cases of knowledge failure. However, we acquire the same plausible result for safety only if we reject his strangeness of impossibility condition and accept the modal closeness of impossible worlds. In this case, the necessity problem can be analogously solved for sensitivity and safety. For some, such non-moderate accounts might come at too high a cost. In this respect, sensitivity is better off than safety when it comes to knowing necessities. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn a recent paper, Michael Pardo argues that the epistemic property that is legally relevant is the one called Safety, rather than Sensitivity. In the process, he argues against our Sensitivity-related account of statistical evidence. Here we revisit these issues, partly in order to respond to Pardo, and partly in order to make general claims about legal epistemology. We clarify our account, we show how it adequately deals with counterexamples and other worries, we raise suspicions about Safety's value (...) here, and we revisit our general skepticism about the role that epistemological considerations should play in determining legal policy. (shrink)

This paper argues for several related theses. First, the epistemological position that knowledge requires safe belief can be motivated by views in the philosophy of science, according to which good explanations show that their explananda are robust. This motivation goes via the idea—recently defended on both conceptual and empirical grounds—that knowledge attributions play a crucial role in explaining successful action. Second, motivating the safety requirement in this way creates a choice point—depending on how we understand robustness, we'll end up (...) with different conceptions of safety in epistemology. Lastly, and most controversially, there's an attractive choice at this point that will not vindicate some of the most influential applications of the safety-theoretic framework in epistemology, e.g., Williamson's arguments against the KK principle, and luminosity. (shrink)

It has been argued that an advantage of the safety account over the sensitivity account is that the safety account preserves epistemic closure, while the sensitivity account implies epistemic closure failure. However, the argument fails to take the method-relativity of the modal conditions on knowledge, viz., sensitivity and safety, into account. In this paper, I argue that the sensitivity account and the safety account are on a par with respect to epistemic closure once the method-relativity of (...) the modal conditions is taken into account. Therefore, epistemic closure is no longer an arbiter in the debate. (shrink)

An account of the nature of knowledge must explain the value of knowledge. I argue that modal conditions, such as safety and sensitivity, do not confer value on a belief and so any account of knowledge that posits a modal condition as a fundamental constituent cannot vindicate widely held claims about the value of knowledge. I explain the implications of this for epistemology: We must either eschew modal conditions as a fundamental constituent of knowledge, or retain the modal conditions (...) but concede that knowledge is not more valuable than that which falls short of knowledge. This second horn—concluding that knowledge has no distinctive value—is unappealing since it renders puzzling why so much epistemological theorising focuses on knowledge, and why knowledge seems so important. (shrink)

The Epistemic Objection says that certain theories of time imply that it is impossible to know which time is absolutely present. Standard presentations of the Epistemic Objection are elliptical—and some of the most natural premises one might fill in to complete the argument end up leading to radical skepticism. But there is a way of filling in the details which avoids this problem, using epistemic safety. The new version has two interesting upshots. First, while Ross Cameron alleges that the (...) Epistemic Objection applies to presentism as much as to theories like the growing block, the safety version does not overgeneralize this way. Second, the Epistemic Objection does generalize in a different, overlooked way. The safety objection is a serious problem for a widely held combination of views: “propositional temporalism” together with “metaphysical eternalism”. (shrink)

In an essay recently published in this journal (“Is Safety in Danger?”), Fernando Broncano-Berrocal defends the safety condition on knowledge from a counterexample proposed by Tomas Bogardus (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2012). In this paper, we will define the safety condition, briefly explain the proposed counterexample, and outline Broncano-Berrocal’s defense of the safety condition. We will then raise four objections to Broncano-Berrocal’s defense, four implausible implications of his central claim. In the end, we conclude that Broncano-Berrocal’s (...) defense of the safety condition is unsuccessful, and that the safety condition on knowledge should be rejected. (shrink)

According to the safety condition, a subject knows that p only if she would believe that p only if p was true. The safety condition has been a very popular necessary condition for knowledge of late. However, it is well documented that the safety condition is trivially satisfied in cases where the subject believes in a necessary truth. This is for the simple reason that a necessary truth is true in all possible worlds, and therefore it is (...) true in all possible worlds where it is believed. But clearly, all beliefs concerning necessary truths do not amount to knowledge. The safety theorists have attempted to deal with the problem caused by necessary truths by restricting the safety condition to purely contingent truths and by globalizing the safety condition to a set of propositions. Both of these solutions are problematic. The principal aim of this paper is to develop a version of the safety condition that is able to deal with cases featuring necessary truths. (shrink)

Safety, as discussed in contemporary epistemology, is a feature of true beliefs. Safe beliefs, when formed by the same method, remain true in close-by possible worlds. I argue that our beliefs being safely true serves no recognisable epistemic interest and, thus, that this notion of safety should play no role in epistemology. Epistemologists have been misled by failing to distinguish between a feature of beliefs — being safely true — and a feature of believers, namely being safe from (...) error. The latter is central to our epistemic endeavours: we want to be able to get right answers, whatever they are, to questions of interest. I argue that we are sufficiently safe from error (in some relevant domain) by being sufficiently sensitive (to relevant distinctions). (shrink)

There are a number of important links and similarities between public health and safety. In this extended essay, Gregg D. Caruso defends and expands his public health-quarantine model, which is a non-retributive alternative for addressing criminal behavior that draws on the public health framework and prioritizes prevention and social justice. In developing his account, he explores the relationship between public health and safety, focusing on how social inequalities and systemic injustices affect health outcomes and crime rates, how poverty (...) affects brain development, how offenders often have pre-existing medical conditions (especially mental health issues), how involvement in the criminal justice system itself can lead to or worsen health and cognitive problems, how treatment and rehabilitation methods can best be employed to reduce recidivism and reintegrate offenders back into society, and how a public health approach could be successfully applied within the criminal justice system. Caruso's approach draws on research from the health sciences, social sciences, public policy, law, psychiatry, medical ethics, neuroscience, and philosophy, and he delivers a set of ethically defensible and practically workable proposals for implementing the public health-quarantine model. The essay begins by discussing recent empirical findings in psychology, neuroscience, and the social sciences that provide us with an increased understanding of the social and neurological determinants of health and criminal behavior. It then turns to Caruso's public health-quarantine model and argues that the model provides the most justified, humane, and effective approach for addressing criminal behavior. Caruso concludes by proposing a capability approach to social justice grounded in six key features of human well-being. He argues that we cannot successfully address concerns over public health and safety without simultaneously addressing issues of social justice—including the social determinants of health (SDH) and the social determinants of criminal behavior (SDCB)—and he recommends eight general policy proposals consistent with his model. (shrink)

The safety condition is supposed to be a necessary condition on knowledge which helps to eliminate epistemic luck. It has been argued that the condition should be globalized to a set of propositions rather than the target proposition believed to account for why not all beliefs in necessary truths are safe. A remaining issue is which propositions are relevant when evaluating whether the target belief is safe or not. In the literature, solutions have been proposed to determine the relevance (...) of propositions. This paper examines a case of luckily true belief—thus a case of ignorance—and a case of knowledge. It argues that no solution in the literature offers a correct verdict in either case. Therefore, the strategy to globalize safety remains unsatisfactory. (shrink)

In the preface paradox the posited author is supposed to know both that every sentence in a book is true and that not every sentence in that book is true. But, this result is paradoxically contradictory. The paradoxicality exhibited in such cases arises chiefly out of the recognition that large-scale and difficult tasks like verifying the truth of large sets of sentences typically involve errors even given our best efforts to be epistemically diligent. This paper introduces an argument designed to (...) resolve the preface paradox so understood by appeal to the safety condition on knowledge. (shrink)

Nominalists are confronted with a grave difficulty: if abstract objects do not exist, what explains the success of theories that invoke them? In this paper, I make headway on this problem. I develop a formal language in which certain platonistic claims about properties and certain nominalistic claims can be expressed, develop a formal language in which only certain nominalistic claims can be expressed, describe a function mapping sentences of the first language to sentences of the second language, and prove some (...) facts about that function and facts about some sound logics for those languages. In doing so, I prove that, given some plausible metaphysical assumptions, a large class of sentences about properties of concrete objects are “safe” on nominalistic grounds. Whenever some true sentences about concrete objects and some sentences belonging to this class that are true according to platonists collectively entail a conclusion about concrete objects, some nominalistically acceptable sentences are true and entail the same conclusion. Because the proof can itself be formulated without abstract objects, it provides a nominalistic explanation of the success of theories that invoke properties of concrete objects. (shrink)

This article is devoted to the study of directions of financial safety of Ukrainian agricultural enterprises through the assessment of indicators economic activity and analysis of the export potential of agricultural products. The financial indicators of economic activity of Ukrainian agricultural enterprises, which affect the ensuring of financial safety, are determined. The activity of large Ukrainian agricultural enterprises in terms of their capitalization and formation of own capital are studied. Analyzed the commodity structure of exports agricultural products of (...) Ukrainian agricultural enterprises and determined the amount of foreign exchange earnings from EU countries. Due to economic-statistical and mathematical tools, a study of the dependence of GDP and the euro on foreign exchange earnings from exports of agricultural products of Ukrainian agricultural enterprises to the EU countries. Offered the scheme of directions of maintenance of financial safety of the agricultural enterprises of Ukraine in the context of internal environment of activity of economic entities and stabilization of macroeconomic indicators of the country. (shrink)

Most philosophers believe that testimony is not a fundamental source of knowledge, but merely a way to transmit already existing knowledge. However, Jennifer Lackey has presented some counterexamples which show that one can actually come to know something through testimony that no one ever knew before. Yet, the intuitive idea can be preserved by the weaker claim that someone in a knowledge-constituting testimonial chain has to have access to some non-testimonial source of knowledge with regard to what is testified. But (...) even this weaker claim has a counterexample which I develop in close connection with a safety-account of knowledge. Thus, testimonial statements can sometimes enable us to know something for which none of our informants has any source of knowledge available. I conclude that my counterexample nevertheless does not affect the core of our intuitions about testimony, although it establishes that testimony can indeed be a fundamental source of knowledge. (shrink)

The paper discusses approaches to Epistemic Contextualism that model the satisfaction of the predicate ‘know’ in a given context C in terms of the notion of belief/fact-matching throughout a contextually specified similarity sphere of worlds that is centred on actuality. The paper offers three counterexamples to approaches of this type and argues that they lead to insurmountable difficulties. I conclude that what contextualists (and Subject-Sensitive Invariantists) have traditionally called the ‘epistemic standards’ of a given context C cannot be explicated in (...) terms of a contextually specified similarity sphere that is centred on actuality. The mentioned accounts of epistemic relevance and thus the corresponding accounts of the context-sensitivity (or subject-sensitivity) of ‘knows’ are to be rejected. (shrink)

In recent ”secular’ Epistemology, much attention has been paid to formulating an ”anti-luck’ or ”safety’ condition; it is now widely held that such a condition is an essential part of any satisfactory post-Gettier reflection on the nature of knowledge. In this paper, I explain the safety condition as it has emerged and then explore some implications of and for it arising from considering the God issue. It looks at the outset as if safety might be ”good news’ (...) for a view characteristic of Reformed Epistemology, viz. the view that if Theism is true, many philosophically unsophisticated believers probably know that it’s true. A sub-conclusion of my paper though suggests that as safety does not by itself turn true belief into knowledge, the recent focus on it is not quite such good news for Reformed Epistemologists as they may have hoped: it’s not that safety provides a new route by which they can reach this sort of conclusion. But safety is still good news for their view at least in the sense that there is no reason arising from considering it to count these philosophically unsophisticated believers as not knowing that there’s a God. I conclude by reflecting that good news for Reformed Epistemology is perhaps bad news for the discipline of Philosophy of Religion more generally, as there’s a possible ”reflection destroys knowledge’-implication to be drawn. Those who have been led to their religious beliefs in at least some philosophically unsophisticated ways seem to enjoy much safer religious beliefs than those who have been led to their religious beliefs by philosophical reflection, so the discipline as a whole will be adversely affected if safety is eventually accorded the role of a necessary condition for knowledge. (shrink)

Depending on whether we are somewhat tolerant of nearby error-possibilities or not, the safety condition on knowledge is open to a strong reading and a weak reading. In this paper, it is argued that induction and conjunction introduction constitute two horns of a dilemma for the safety account of knowledge. If we opt for the strong reading, then the safety account fails to account for inductive knowledge. In contrast, if we opt for the weak reading, then the (...) safety account fails to accommodate knowledge obtained via the method of conjunction introduction. (shrink)

Safety purports to explain why cases of accidentally true belief are not knowledge, addressing Gettier cases and cases of belief based on statistical evidence. However, numerous examples suggest that safety fails as a condition on knowledge: a belief can be safe even when one's evidence is clearly insufficient for knowledge and knowledge is compatible with the nearby possibility of error, a situation ruled out by the safety condition. In this paper, I argue for a new modal condition (...) designed to capture the non-accidental relationship between facts and evidence required for knowledge: causal safety. I argue that possible errors in belief can be captured by accounting for deviations in causal relationships and that there is a natural way to characterize which causal errors are relevant in an epistemic situation. Using this, I develop a causal analogue to safety, where one's belief in p is causally safe iff it is true in all causally relevant worlds where one believes p. Causal safety, I argue, can explain the cases safety is meant to address while avoiding the issues raised for safety. (shrink)

This paper contains an argument to the effect that possible worlds semantics renders semantic knowledge impossible, no matter what ontological interpretation is given to possible worlds. The essential contention made is that possible worlds semantic knowledge is unsafe and this is shown by a parallel with the preface paradox.

Imagine you fly home from vacation with your one-and-a-half-year-old son who is traveling for free as a “lap child.” In the airport parking lot, you put him into his forward-facing car seat, where he sits much more contentedly than he did in the rear-facing one that was mandatory until his first birthday. After he falls asleep on the way home, you transfer him to his crib without waking him, lowering the side rail so you can lift him in more easily. (...) -/- Many parts of this idyllic parenting picture are deemed unacceptably risky according to recent child safety proposals. While these proposals all aim to improve child safety, their possible impact is unclear because there has been little discussion of the absolute risk and risk reduction involved in each. And while precise figures are lacking, rough estimates indicate that the magnitudes are quite small. I will argue that this risk and benefit data raises important questions about the proposals, including whether parents might reasonably believe that the small absolute risk reduction offered by the proposed changes does not justify the attendant burdens. This possibility—termed the “prevention paradox” in other contexts—highlights ethical and theoretical challenges in this area of public health. (shrink)

This paper introduces a new argument for the safety condition on knowledge. It is based on the contention that the rejection of safety entails the rejection of the factivity condition on knowledge. But, since we should maintain factivity, we should endorse safery.

This paper critically explores Timothy Williamson’s view of evidence, and it does so in light of the problem of epistemic luck. Williamson’s view of evidence is, of course, a crucially important aspect of his novel and influential “knowledge-first” epistemological project. Notoriously, one crucial thesis of this project is that one’s evidence is equivalent to what one knows. This has come to be known as the E = K thesis. This paper specifically addresses Williamson’s knowledge-first epistemology and the E = K (...) thesis in the context of anti-luck epistemology and the idea that knowledge is factive. Williamson’s views on these matters are worth investigating in some detail because he subscribes to a well-worked out anti-luck view of knowledge that incorporates what is perhaps the most common anti-luck condition. But this paper is also of more general importance because the critique of Williamson’s views on these matters reveals some important things about the nature of evidence and evidence is one of the most fundamental concepts in epistemology. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson (1992, 224–5) and Ernest Sosa (1996) have ar- gued that knowledge requires one to be safe from error. Something is said to be safe from happening iff it does not happen at “close” worlds. I expand here on a puzzle noted by John Hawthorne (2004, 56n) that suggests the need for two notions of closeness. Counterfac- tual closeness is a matter of what could in fact have happened, given the specific circumstances at hand. The notion is involved in (...) the semantics for counterfactuals and is the one epistemologists have typically assumed. Normalized closeness is rather a matter of what could typically have happened, that is, what would go on in a class of normal alternatives to actuality, irrespectively of whether or not they could have happened in the circumstances at hand. (shrink)

To enable microbial colonisation of the gut mucosa, the intestinal immune system must not only react to danger signals but also recognize cues that indicate safety. Safety recognition, paradoxically, is mediated by the same environmental sensors that are involved in signalling danger. Indeed, in addition to their well established role in inducing inflammation in response to stress signals, pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) and a variety of metabolic sensors also promote gut-microbiota symbiosis by responding to "microbial symbiosis factors", "resolution-associated (...) molecular patterns", markers of energy extraction and other signals indicating the absence of pathogenic infection and tissue damage. Here we focus on how the paradoxical role of immune receptors and other environmental sensors define the microbiota signature of the individual. (shrink)

I intend to argue that the counterexamples inspired by the Frankfurt-type cases against the necessity of an epistemic safety condition for knowledge are not plausible. The epistemic safety condition for knowledge is a modal condition recently supported by Sosa (2007) and Pritchard (2015), among others, and can be formulated as follows: (SC) If S knows that p on basis B, then S’s true belief that p could not have easily been false on basis B. I will try to (...) argue that the safety condition, expressed in (SC), is still necessary for knowledge and that, therefore, epistemic safety is not threatened by Frankfurt-type cases. In particular, I want to show that Kelp’s counterexamples are ineffective against (SC). (shrink)

This paper introduces a new argument against Richard Foley’s threshold view of belief. His view is based on the Lockean Thesis (LT) and the Rational Threshold Thesis (RTT). The argument introduced here shows that the views derived from the LT and the RTT violate the safety condition on knowledge in way that threatens the LT and/or the RTT.

The AI Robotics Ethics Society (AIRES) is a non-profit organization founded in 2018 by Aaron Hui to promote awareness and the importance of ethical implementation and regulation of AI. AIRES is now an organization with chapters at universities such as UCLA (Los Angeles), USC (University of Southern California), Caltech (California Institute of Technology), Stanford University, Cornell University, Brown University, and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). AIRES at PUCRS is the first international chapter of AIRES, and (...) as such, we are committed to promoting and enhancing the AIRES Mission. Our mission is to focus on educating the AI leaders of tomorrow in ethical principles to ensure that AI is created ethically and responsibly. As there are still few proposals for how we should implement ethical principles and normative guidelines in the practice of AI system development, the goal of this work is to try to bridge this gap between discourse and praxis. Between abstract principles and technical implementation. In this work, we seek to introduce the reader to the topic of AI Ethics and Safety. At the same time, we present several tools to help developers of intelligent systems develop "good" models. This work is a developing guide published in English and Portuguese. Contributions and suggestions are welcome. (shrink)

Ernest Sosa and others have proposed a safety condition on knowledge: If S knows p, then in the nearest (non-actual) worlds in which S believes p, p is true.1 Colloquially, this is the idea that knowing requires not being easily mistaken. Here, I will argue that like another condition requiring a counterfactual relation between a subject’s belief and the world, viz. Robert Nozick’s sensitivity condition, safety leads, in certain cases, to the unacceptable result that knowledge is not closed (...) under known implication. (shrink)

According to the safety account of knowledge, one knows that p only if one’s belief could not easily have been false. An important issue for the account is whether we should only examine the target belief when evaluating whether a belief is safe or not. In this paper, it is argued that, if we should only examine the target belief, then the account fails to account for ignorance of necessary truths. But, if we should also examine beliefs in other (...) relevant propositions, then the account fails to account for knowledge from falsehood. Therefore, the safety account of knowledge is undermined by knowledge from falsehood and ignorance of necessary truths. (shrink)

Fictionalists maintain that possible worlds, numbers or composite objects exist only according to theories which are useful but false. Hale, Divers and Woodward have provided arguments which threaten to show that fictionalists must be prepared to regard the theories in question as contingently, rather than necessarily, false. If warranted, this conclusion would significantly limit the appeal of the fictionalist strategy rendering it unavailable to anyone antecedently convinced that mathematics and metaphysics concern non-contingent matters. I try to show that their arguments (...) can be resisted by developing and defending a strategy suggested by Rosen, Nolan and Dorr, according to which the fiction-operator is to be analysed in terms of a counterfactual that admits of non-trival truth-values even when the antecedent is impossible. (shrink)

Decision-making by a Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) regarding clinical trial conduct and termination is intricate and largely limited by cases and rules. Decision-making by legal jury is also intricate and largely constrained by cases and rules. In this paper, I argue by analogy that legal decision-making, which strives for a balance between competing demands of conservatism and innovation, supplies a good basis to the logic behind DSMB decision-making. Using the doctrine of precedents in legal reasoning as my (...) central analog will lead us to a decision-theoretic analogy for much more systematic documentation of decisions in clinical trials. My conclusion is twofold: every DSMB decision should articulate a clear general principle (a ratio decidendi) that gives reason for the decision; and all such decisions should be made public. I use Bartha’s (2010) theory of analogical arguments to both frame and assess my argument by analogy. (shrink)

There are two types of artificial general intelligence (AGI) safety solutions: global and local. Most previously suggested solutions are local: they explain how to align or “box” a specific AI (Artificial Intelligence), but do not explain how to prevent the creation of dangerous AI in other places. Global solutions are those that ensure any AI on Earth is not dangerous. The number of suggested global solutions is much smaller than the number of proposed local solutions. Global solutions can be (...) divided into four groups: 1. No AI: AGI technology is banned or its use is otherwise prevented; 2. One AI: the first superintelligent AI is used to prevent the creation of any others; 3. Net of AIs as AI police: a balance is created between many AIs, so they evolve as a net and can prevent any rogue AI from taking over the world; 4. Humans inside AI: humans are augmented or part of AI. We explore many ideas, both old and new, regarding global solutions for AI safety. They include changing the number of AI teams, different forms of “AI Nanny” (non-self-improving global control AI system able to prevent creation of dangerous AIs), selling AI safety solutions, and sending messages to future AI. Not every local solution scales to a global solution or does it ethically and safely. The choice of the best local solution should include understanding of the ways in which it will be scaled up. Human-AI teams or a superintelligent AI Service as suggested by Drexler may be examples of such ethically scalable local solutions, but the final choice depends on some unknown variables such as the speed of AI progress. (shrink)

One objection to conventional AI ethics is that it slows innovation. This presentation responds by reconfiguring ethics as an innovation accelerator. The critical elements develop from a contrast between Stability AI’s Diffusion and OpenAI’s Dall-E. By analyzing the divergent values underlying their opposed strategies for development and deployment, five conceptions are identified as common to acceleration ethics. Uncertainty is understood as positive and encouraging, rather than discouraging. Innovation is conceived as intrinsically valuable, instead of worthwhile only as mediated by social (...) effects. AI problems are solved by more AI, not less. Permissions and restrictions governing AI emerge from a decentralized process, instead of a unified authority. The work of ethics is embedded in AI development and application, instead of functioning from outside. Together, these attitudes and practices remake ethics as provoking rather than restraining artificial intelligence. (shrink)

We present Backward Clock, an original counterexample to Robert Nozick’s truth-tracking analysis of propositional knowledge, which works differently from other putative counterexamples and avoids objections to which they are vulnerable. We then argue that four ways of analysing knowledge in terms of safety, including Duncan Pritchard’s, cannot withstand Backward Clock either.

Abstract: The field of artificial general intelligence (AGI) safety is quickly growing. However, the nature of human values, with which future AGI should be aligned, is underdefined. Different AGI safety researchers have suggested different theories about the nature of human values, but there are contradictions. This article presents an overview of what AGI safety researchers have written about the nature of human values, up to the beginning of 2019. 21 authors were overviewed, and some of them have (...) several theories. A theory classification method is suggested, where the theories are judged according to the level of their complexity and behaviorists-internalists scale, as well as the level of their generality-humanity. We suggest that a multiplicity of well-supported theories means that the nature of human values is difficult to define, and some meta-level theory is needed. (shrink)

Testing is one of the core educational assessment practices in higher education for performance appraisal, placement and decision-making. Testing in education is also used to assess students’ level of understanding, knowledge and skills possessed after completing a course or a programme. Based on significant importance, it is very glaring that different higher institutions of learning and beyond are using this valuable tool for grading students’ performance. It.

Abstract: This article presents a model of self-improving AI in which improvement could happen on several levels: hardware, learning, code and goals system, each of which has several sublevels. We demonstrate that despite diminishing returns at each level and some intrinsic difficulties of recursive self-improvement—like the intelligence-measuring problem, testing problem, parent-child problem and halting risks—even non-recursive self-improvement could produce a mild form of superintelligence by combining small optimizations on different levels and the power of learning. Based on this, we analyze (...) how self-improvement could happen on different stages of the development of AI, including the stages at which AI is boxed or hiding in the internet. (shrink)

Retributive theories of punishment argue that punishing a criminal for a crime she committed is sufficient reason for a justified and morally permissible punishment. But what about when the state gets lucky in its decision to punish? I argue that retributive theories of punishment are subject to “Gettier” style cases from epistemology. Such cases demonstrate that the state needs more than to just get lucky, and as these retributive theories of punishment stand, there is no anti-luck condition. I’ll argue that (...) Gettier-style cases demonstrate an impermissible instance of punishment, even though they meet the conditions of retributive theories of punishment. Retributive theories are, therefore, too weak. The safety condition from epistemology provides the anti-luck condition needed for permissible punishment. I argue that two forms of retributivism, rights-forfeiture and what I call standard retributivism, are both subject to Gettier-style cases. Unlike the literature on standards of proof, this paper argues that safety is a condition on punishment itself, i.e., in all nearby possible worlds, the accuser must correctly accuse the convicted for the crime they actually committed. (shrink)

Many contemporary epistemologists hold that a subject S’s true belief that p counts as knowledge only if S’s belief that p is also, in some important sense, safe. I describe accounts of this safety condition from John Hawthorne, Duncan Pritchard, and Ernest Sosa. There have been three counterexamples to safety proposed in the recent literature, from Comesaña, Neta and Rohrbaugh, and Kelp. I explain why all three proposals fail: each moves fallaciously from the fact that S was at (...) epistemic risk just before forming her belief to the conclusion that S’s belief was formed unsafely. In light of lessons from their failure, I provide a new and successful counterexample to the safety condition on knowledge. It follows, then, that knowledge need not be safe. Safety at a time depends counterfactually on what would likely happen at that time or soon after in a way that knowledge does not. I close by considering one objection concerning higher-order safety. (shrink)

Invention of artificial general intelligence is predicted to cause a shift in the trajectory of human civilization. In order to reap the benefits and avoid pitfalls of such powerful technology it is important to be able to control it. However, possibility of controlling artificial general intelligence and its more advanced version, superintelligence, has not been formally established. In this paper, we present arguments as well as supporting evidence from multiple domains indicating that advanced AI can’t be fully controlled. Consequences of (...) uncontrollability of AI are discussed with respect to future of humanity and research on AI, and AI safety and security. This paper can serve as a comprehensive reference for the topic of uncontrollability. (shrink)

Sensitivity and safety are modal concepts of knowledge. A person’s belief that p is sensitive if and only if in the closest possible world where p is false S does not believe that p. A person’s belief that p is safe if and only if in most near-by possible worlds in which S continues to form her belief that p in the same way as in the actual world the belief continues to be true. Robert Nozick claims that sensitivity (...) is a necessary condition for knowledge. Ernest Sosa, Timothy Williamson and Duncan Pritchard argue among others that safety is necessary for knowledge. I shall contest both views by offering counterexamples of persons, to whom it is highly plausible to ascribe knowledge although their beliefs are neither sensitive nor safe. I conclude that neither sensitivity nor safety is a necessary condition for knowledge and that insensitive and unsafe knowledge exists. (shrink)

The issue of safety culture is one of the most important in a modern medical facility because any problems during the provision of services may lead to irreversible consequences. Not only the patient may suffer, but the doctor who assisted. Unfortunately, very little attention to this issue is paid in Ukraine. Based on this, we can say that the topic is relevant and requires studying. -/- The purpose of writing this article is the analysis of the ways of forming (...) professional safety culture in clinical medicine. The methods by which we carried out scientific research are observation, analysis, evaluation, comparison, generalization. -/- The work examined interpretation of the term "safety culture", types of innovation in which it belongs and the main methods of its creation in the medical field. -/- Safety culture in the medical field involves the right of all health care workers to use measures to prevent actions that can harm a patient or a colleague. Different approaches were considered in the interpretation of the term "safety culture" and we proposed our own: safety culture is a system of values, objectives, knowledge and skills, rules and procedures, convictions shared by representatives of a certain medical profession and supported by patients, creating a favourable working climate, atmosphere of trust and becoming an efficient tool for achieving the goals of the organization. -/- The main components of the safety culture were defined: responsibilities of managers, communication, performance, resources of safety, trust, the degree of job satisfaction, etc. Based on several studies, it was found that no country has a perfect medical system. Every system should be improved. -/- We proposed measures to fix the situation with the safety culture in health care facilities. The correct management of safety can eliminate or fix many medical errors. That is why the need for a clear program of implementation, execution and control of SC in the medical establishment is necessary. -/- Scientific novelty of this work lies in the interpretation of the term "safety culture" at medical institutions and in determining major steps towards its creation. Practical value of the work is the opportunity to implement these steps in medical institutions for improvement of the safety culture and, therefore, to reduce the risk of bad accidents during treatment. -/- Further research can address safety culture management in medical institutions on the examples from the experience of countries with effective systems of health care. (shrink)