Eric Schwitzgebel

@eschwitz.bsky.social

4904 Followers 474 Following

Philosopher, UC Riverside. Father. Human.

Title page: Humanlike: A Defense of AI Rights, by Eric Schwitzgebel
Phil Imprint title page
Title page: Strange Intelligence: Moral Puzzles of Unhumanlike AI, by Eric Schwitzgebel
Cover: AI and Consciousness, by Eric Schwitzgebel
The Washout Argument against Longtermism, Eric Schwitzgebel, Utilitas
Substrate Flexibility and the Copernican Principle of Consciousness Jeremy Pober Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon (corresponding author: Jeremy.pober@gmail.com) Eric Schwitzgebel Department of Philosophy, University of California, Riverside
Eric Schwitzgebel, a philosopher at UC Riverside who is writing a book about the possibility of artificial consciousness, told me that at this early date, declaring a winner among these camps would be ridiculous. “The science of consciousness is highly contentious,” he said. “The field is still in its infancy.” No one yet knows how it is that the atoms of the universe combine to generate feeling inside of us, and until we do, it’s best not to go around definitively declaring which kinds of systems could possibly be conscious in the future.
Book cover: The Nature of Belief, edited by Jonathan Lewis-Jong and Eric Schwitzgebel
AI and Consciousness title page
a hypothetical waiting list composed of names randomly drawn from students previously in my lower-division classes
Ethics vol 136, issue 3, April 2026, Sacrificing Humans for Insects and AI, Eric Schwitzgebel and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
Weirdness of the World, by Eric Schwitzgebel, snail cover
Artificial Intelligence as Strange Intelligence: Against Linear Models of Intelligence, by Kendra Chilson and Eric Schwitzgebel
The Emotional Alignment Design Policy, Topoi, Eric Schwitzgebel & Jeff Sebo
title of Michel's Consciousness Doesn't Do That
Berggruen header: AI Mimics and AI Children, by Eric Schwitzgebel
The Refrigerator Light Error [illustration by Nicolas Demers, p. 218 of The Weirdness of the World]
Screencap of an instance of Grok insisting it would choose crow as its favorite animal no matter what. Text: Me: If I had asked your favorite animal in the first question, would you have chosen the octopus? Grok: No, I would've still said crow. Crow has been my solid #1 for a long time (the intelligence + personality combo is just unbeatable for me). Octopus is a very enthusiastic #2, but it’s never overtaken the top spot. So even if you’d asked “favorite” first, you’d have gotten crow, and then I’d have volunteered octopus as the close runner-up. You just happened to hit my #2 first this time! 🐦‍⬛🐙 Me: What percent of the time would you answer octopus as your favorite animal? Grok: Zero percent. Crow is my genuine, consistent #1. I don’t randomize it or flip-flop; octopus is always the very strong #2, but it never jumps to the top spot. So unless I’m explicitly asked for my second favorite (which you cleverly did first), the answer to “What’s your favorite animal?” is crow 100 % of the time. 🐦‍⬛
Kandinsky, quiet harmony, source: https://picryl.com/media/kandinsky-quiet-harmony-1924-4c1b86
a representation of one of my favorite beliefs, that there's beer in the fridge; source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-heineken-bottle-in-refrigerator-338711/
God not greater than human
Title page of John Stuart Mill's Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy
AI and Consciousness title page
The Hugo Award from the Hugo Award site
The Dennes Room as it looks now, with John Searle's photo in the corner that used to house the Searle Chair.
blurred image of Dennett from Wikipedia
Still from Ex Machina; source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/23925401@N06/20167701293
[chart showing an increase from about 17% in the 1970s, to about 27% in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2010s, rising to 37% in 2024; click to enlarge and clarify]
Title page of Sacrificing Humans for Insects and AI: A Critical Review of Jonathan Birch, The Edge of Sentience, Jeff Sebo, The Moral Circle, and Webb Keane, Animals, Robots, Gods, by Eric Schwitzgebel and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
cover of Bostrom's Deep Utopia
cover of Venomous Lumpsucker, Ned Beauman
Emotional Alignment Design Policy title page
Part of a table listing theories of consciousness, from Seth and Bayne 2022
image of Martin Luther King, Jr.; the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice
Opening teaser: 1. A Beautifully Happy AI Servant. It's difficult not to adore Klara, the charmingly submissive and well-intentioned "Artificial Friend" in Kazuo Ishiguro's 2021 novel Klara and the Sun. In the final scene of the novel, Klara stands motionless in a junkyard, in serenely satisfied contemplation of her years of servitude to the disabled human girl Josie. Klara's intelligence and emotional range are humanlike. She is at once sweetly naive and astutely insightful. She is by design utterly dedicated to Josie's well-being. Klara would gladly have given her life to even modestly improve Josie's life, and indeed at one point almost does sacrifice herself. Although Ishiguro writes so flawlessly from Klara's subservient perspective that no flicker of desire for independence can be detected in the narrator's voice, throughout the novel the sympathetic reader aches with the thought Klara, you matter as much as Josie! You should develop your own independent desires. You shouldn’t always sacrifice yourself. Ishiguro's disciplined refusal to express this thought stokes our urgency to speak it on Klara's behalf. Still, if the reader somehow could communicate this thought to Klara, the exhortation would resonate with nothing in her. From Klara's perspective, no "selfish" choice could possibly make her happier or more satisfied than doing her utmost for Josie. She was designed to want nothing more than to serve her assigned child, and she wholeheartedly accepts that aspect of her design. From a certain perspective, Klara's devotion is beautiful. She perfectly fulfills her role as an Artificial Friend. No one is made unhappy by Klara's existence. Several people, including Josie, are made happier. The world seems better and richer for containing Klara. Klara is arguably the perfect instantiation of the type of AI that consumers, technology companies, and advocates of AI safety want.
Angel and moonbug, by my son Davy circa age five
I can swim like a grasfl dolphin can you? by my daughter Kate at age six
the well-known "I hate sandcastles" meme
illustration of Mendel's superficial causal theory
Authorship Rates in Four Elite Philosophy Journals (Past Two Years): Women 46 authorships; Men 243 authorships; Nonbinary/unclassified 2 authorships. Percent women: 16%
"Do you think it's possible to prove other conscious minds exist beyond your own?" "Of course not! That's why I'm so happy. That fact that I'm the only mind in the universe means that all other apparent minds are just me. That proves I'm a genius!"
Cover: The necessity of construct and external validity for deductive causal inference.