I would suggest that, rather than adapting to AI, we should make AI adapt to us and our needs.

Man, this is a good one.

In the name of efficiency, we've added a delay to any human being who wants to access a website so that we can verify that they are human.

To describe a phenomenon as a cancer is an incitement to violence. [... ] But it could be argued that the cancer metaphors are in themselves implicitly genocidal. —Susan Sontag

I'm very happy this paper (A Semantic Vacuity Theory of Truth) came out: doi.org/10.1093/mind...

I tend to be partial to mid-century abstract and minimalist book covers but some books these days do have beautiful covers.

My basic mental model for this now is: the US is at war with Syracuse in addition to its other commitments.

The Trump administration keeps comparing themselves to the Athenians in the Peloponnesian war, the weak suffer what they must and all. If only there were an example from that war of an Athenian war of choice on a power halfway across the world so that we could learn from that experience.

Wars should be entered into only at last resort, only with a just cause, and only with as clear an objective as can be formulated at the time.

'And I'm gonna tell you workers, 'fore you cash in your checks: They say "America First," but they mean "America Next!"'.

This morning I had a student I taught 17 years ago email to ask me a logic question and a student I taught last semester email me that they liked my courses and want to pursue philosophy of language further.

It's already really weird to me morally that realists parrot the Athenian speeches to the Melians and on the Mytilenean debate in Thucydides. But, have they not read the rest of the book? Do they think the war and their conduct in it works out well for the Athenians?

So based on the DOJ’s recent record with regard to political prosecutions, what happens when Maduro is acquitted?

I thought at least some of the lessons of the Iraq war had been learned.

What fraction of the rest of my life will be spent turning off AI Assistants? (I'm not even a person who thinks these are utterly useless.)

Alexis de Tocqueville just absolutely rinses Andrew Jackson.

Students using contemporary Scots poetry to illustrate principles of Classical Indian Philosophy of Language in their essays is an interesting cross-pollination.

Similarly, he notes that the senate is a dangerous mess but that nothing bad has happened because less populous states hadn’t ganged up.

Tocqueville points out how dangerous it is to have a president who can stay in office without an effective majority in the legislature, but the notes that it’s not a big deal there wasn’t much for the president to do at the time.

I've been listening to Locke's Two Treatises (which I hadn't read in a long time), and some of the passages feel like the most damning criticisms of Trump I've ever heard.

"Yeah, but what is truth? If you follow me." -- Lionel Hutz

One way for Labour to improve their polling position and display their moderation might be for them to reintroduce the long parliament's ban on Christmas, imposing fines for Christmas celebrations.

My paper "Conceptual Engineering as Inquiry" with Derek Ball came out recently. It argues for a conclusion about CE that some may find *surprising*. (link.springer.com/chapter/10.1...)

I saw this plaque outside the library on a recent trip to Southampton.

We have finally learned what Meatloaf would not do for love.

I am totally here for this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxTg...

My Compositionality entry is out at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: plato.stanford.edu/entries/comp...

Guys repairing the roof in the office above me are listening to "Golden" from Kpop Demon Hunters at top volume.

If a major studio were to release an AI generated animated movie, would it be copyright infringement for animators to re-draw it scene by scene with small changes and for voice actors to voice it and release it as their own work?

Etoufee

I woke up at the same time this morning (in Scotland), looked out the window, and had an urge to play this song www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAEp.... Hello Darkness, my old friend indeed.

One way to frame this is that Caldwell is proposing that the military should be an experiment in social engineering (so as to exclude people) and then writing as if that's what his opponents want to do.

Another use for LLMs/AIs: rather than go to the beach, and have to bring a suit and towel, and come home all sandy, you could have the AIs fabricate photos of you going to the beach, not look at them, have the AI post them on social media, and let LLMs write comments (that you don't read).

Another use for LLMs, rather than solve a conflict with another person by discussion and compromise, you could have the LLMs propose a solution and then ignore it.

I was about to do a task but was temporarily distracted by another task. In the interim, the first task was resolved on its own. Hurray for structured procrastination!

Defend Bryans/Brians/Brayans: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/w...

It really hit me that I'm not in Scotland when it started drizzling and everyone started ducking into shops and protected places.

Me and my sake.

My most anti-immigration opinion is that any company over a certain size that wants to hire immigrants should be required to have a recognised union.

Can one felicitously say, "What Sam told me surprised me. I didn't think we were that close."?

Is there any interesting literature on the difference between audience and addressee in pragmatics?

“Close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades”. -yeah, well guess which game we’re playing, pal.

If you’re worried your LLM will hallucinate, why not just put “don’t hallucinate” in the prompt?

This is quite simply an incredible headline.

I listened to an interesting interview on Ezra Klein today. He asked what meaning a task can have if an AI could also do it or if it is frictionless. What crystallised is (i) that it is already the case that someone else can do it better and (ii) everything is hard. (1/4)

One of my deepest commitments is that no one thesis in philosophy is ever "dead" and never worth discussing again, as much as each (person myself) include would like some to be and that this is related to the fact that there are continually new people popping into the world with their own ideas.

Take that Fregeans:

Every time I delete work email from my phone I am happier and more productive until I have to install it again.

I’m always surprised when people say that LLMs have no use cases. For example, rather than walking your dog to the park, you could have ChatGPT write a description of you walking your dog to the park.

My paper on Frege and Sense Variation with @jadamcarter.bsky.social is now out. Synopsis: sense variation is tolerable when---relative to the background beliefs of speaker and audience---the thoughts of speaker and hearer share entailments. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....