Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.

  1. Mark's avatar

    I just want to address this comment: > What initially presents itself as impressive intelligence can, upon closer inspection by…

  2. sahpa's avatar

    Hi Dan, Actually, no, that the engine is next-token prediction does not entail that “there is only so much recycling,…

  3. Mark's avatar

    I’m a mathematician who works on AI research, though not specifically on training LLMs. Basically, we really don’t know what’s…

  4. Luis Marxuach's avatar

    My experience with LLMs as a layperson/non-philosopher is that the aforesaid are excellent as spell checkers and translators (and, at…

  5. 永江　守's avatar

    I think we need to separate several different issues here: the future of the university, the future of education, the…

  6. Brian Leiter's avatar
  7. David Wallace's avatar

    Unless we accept dualism, ultimately any creative process comes down to high-level emergent consequences of a very complex system whose…

August 2006

  • The Bush Admin’s War on Preventing Terrorist Attacks, Part 45 (Leiter)

    It’s a matter of priorities.

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  • Alternatives Other Than Democracy? (Nadelhoffer)

    Over at The Progressive, Matthew Rothschild has an interesting commentary on the recent suggestion by the Bush administration that they are looking into "alternatives other than democracy" as a possible solution to the quagmire in Iraq (see here).  Here is an excerpt: There was a big clue planted at the bottom of the very long…

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  • SSRN Downloads for Non-US Scholars

    Thom Brooks (Newcastle) reports the numbers.

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  • Is Our “War” President HAR1 Deficient? (Nadelhoffer)

    A recent scientific discovery may help fill in some of the remaining gaps in our understanding of human evolution (see here details).  Scientists from the United States, Belgium and France identified 49 "human accelerated regions" (HARs) showing a lot of genetic activity. In the most active, identified as HAR1, they found 18 out of the…

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  • Slight Improvements on the Ground? (Nadelhoffer)

    Tony Snow–the Bushie mouthpiece du jour–is once again trying hard to avoid speaking the truth (see here).  Just days after we learned that July was the deadliest month for Iraqi civilians since their liberation (3,400+ dead in July alone, see here and here), and in the wake of news that the insurgents are blowing things…

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  • Lateral Moves During the Past Year

    Dan Filler (Drexel) has updated, once again, his more comprehensive listing here.

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  • New Philosophical Gourmet Report

    In response to queries:  the new PGR for 2006-08 should be on-line by early November, at the same URL as the current Philosophical Gourmet Report for 2004-06. I’m also pleased to report that three additional philosophers have agreed to join the Advisory Board of the PGR:  Craig Callender from the University of California at San…

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  • Oh, the Irony (Nadelhoffer)

    It appears that Dick Cheney and Karl Rove may be forced to testify in the civil suit filed by former CIA operative Valeria Plame and her husband Joseph Wilson (see here).  The irony is two-fold: first,the legal precedent Plame’s lawyer is relying on to try to force Cheney and Rove to testify stems, in part,…

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  • A Question of Priorities (Wolff)

    From The Independent today: The chief of staff of Israel’s military was under pressure yesterday after a disclosure that he sold about £14,500 of stocks within three hours of the Hizbollah border raid that triggered the Lebanon conflict. Dan Halutz, head of the Israel Defence Force (IDF), was reported by the Israeli newspaper, Maariv, to…

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  • Faculty Appointments Chairs for 2006-07: Make Yourself Known!

    MOVING TO FRONT from August 2 to encourage more responses–this is a useful resource for teaching candidates! ============================= MOVING TO FRONT from July 19 to encourage more responses ============================= Prawfsblog collects the info.

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  • 11 Canadian Universities Decline to Participate in Canadian Version of U.S. News Rankings

    MOVING TO FRONT FROM AUG. 14, SINCE THERE IS NOW A LIVELY COMMENTS SECTION. Story here; an excerpt: Eleven Canadian universities advised Maclean’s magazine on Monday that they will not participate in this year’s survey that assigns rankings to each institution because of concerns about the methodology and the validity of some of the measures.…

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  • “Yo, Olmert!” “Oy…Bush….” (Edmundson)

    Israelis and their friends (me included) are wondering what went wrong.  Robert Parry, in "Israeli Leaders Fault Bush on War" (Aug. 13) writes: Amid the political and diplomatic fallout from Israel’s faltering invasion of Lebanon, some Israeli officials are privately blaming President George W. Bush for egging Prime Minister Ehud Olmert into the ill-conceived military…

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  • 11 Leading Canadian Universities Refuse to Cooperate with Canadian Version of US News Rankings (Leiter)

    The other Brian Leiter has the details.

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  • Anyone Have a Car in Chicago I Might “Rent”? (Leiter)

    As many readers know, I’m going to be at the University of Chicago in the fall.  Driving from Austin is more hassle than it’s worth, so I am wondering whether any readers in the Chicago area who might be on leave themselves in the fall, or who have an extra car, would be willing to…

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  • The President of Iran Has a Blog! (Leiter)

    Ruchira Paul has the details.

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