prior probability

Below is an alternate version of Lee Greenwood’s classic anthem:

FYI: I will be blogging about the following works (beginning with item #1 below) in the days and weeks ahead:

1. Review of Adam Smith’s 1755 “Letter to the Authors of the Edinburgh Review”, available here.
2. Review of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, available here.
3. Review of Truth and Evidence (NYU Press, 2021), a collection of essays edited by Melissa Schwartzberg and Philip Kitcher.

1. AI Regulation (via Elad Blog)

2. Former Google CEO: Companies’ AI guardrails “aren’t enough” to prevent harm (via Axios)

3. The Economic Case for Generative AI and Foundation Models (via a16z)

4. When AI Is Trained on AI-Generated Data, Strange Things Start to Happen (via Futurism)

5. What happens when thousands of hackers try to break AI chatbots (via NPR)

6. AI can do your homework. Now what? (YouTube video via Vox)

I have surveyed this topic before (see here), and so this fascinating essay on “The Future of the Philosophy of Conspiracy Theory: An Introduction to Conspiracy Theory Theory” by Matthew R. X. Dentith, who edited an entire collection of essays on this subject (see below), just popped up into my Google Scholar “Recommended Articles” feed. Alas, I am so disappointed that I missed the 1st International Conference on the Philosophy of Conspiracy Theory (here), which took place at Pitzer College in February of 2022, as well as the 2nd one (here), which met at the University of Amsterdam in June of 2023. Although a 3rd conspiracy theory conference has yet to be announced, I will be on the lookout …

For context, see here or here.

1. SpaceX wants to impose its ‘own legal regime’ on Mars for human settlements; a space law expert says that’s dubious, but Earth should take it seriously anyway (via Business Insider)

2. Moon’s resources could be ‘destroyed by thoughtless exploitation’, Nasa warned (via The Guardian)

3. A lot is riding on Astrobotic moon lander set for launch Monday on new Vulcan Centaur (via The Orlando Sentinel)

4. For the first time, U.S. government lets hackers break into satellite in space (via Politico)

5. U.S. warns Starlink satellites will start killing people and reveals chance of hitting a human will soon be 61% each year (via The Sun)

6. ‘Terrifying’ video reveals Elon Musk’s huge army of satellites as scientists warn of Starlink’s ‘hidden danger’ (also via The Sun)

7. Two U.S. firms to launch spacecraft to the moon within weeks of each other (via The Washington Post)

You’re welcome! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_containing_Q_not_followed_by_U

FYI: below are links to three of the open tabs on my Internet browser:

1. Smith and Rousseau’s Competing Visions of Commercial Society (via Adam Smith Works)

2. 2023 Word of the Year Is “Enshittification” (via the American Dialect Society; hat tip: Kottke)

3. The intrepid logician Kurt Gödel believed in the afterlife. In four heartfelt letters to his mother he explained why (via aeon; hat tip: Brian Leiter)