Jeffrey White

Through brain-inspired modeling studies, cognitive neurorobotics aims to resolve dynamics essential to different emergent phenomena at the level of embodied agency in an object environment shared with human beings. This article is a review of ongoing research focusing on model dynamics associated with human self-consciousness. It introduces the fre...

This paper proposes that existing computational modeling research programs may be combined into platforms for the information of public policy. The main idea is that computational models at select levels of organization may be integrated in natural terms describing biological cognition, thereby normalizing a platform for predictive simulations able...

Ryan Tonkens (2009) has issued a seemingly impossible challenge, to articulate a comprehensive ethical framework within which artificial moral agents (AMAs) satisfy a Kantian inspired recipe—"rational" and "free"—while also satisfying perceived prerogatives of machine ethicists to facilitate the creation of AMAs that are perfectly and not merely re...

Nick Bostrom's recently patched ''simulation argument'' (Bostrom in Philos Q 53:243-255, 2003; Bos-trom and Kulczycki in Analysis 71:54-61, 2011) purports to demonstrate the probability that we ''live'' now in an ''ancestor simulation''-that is as a simulation of a period prior to that in which a civilization more advanced than our own-''post-human...

Summary: • The paper discusses the concept of metaphysical self in the context of predictive processing and predictive coding inspired accounts of self. It proposes that an immutable sense of self emerges during adolescent development as a global project ideal self-situation embodied in frontal medial processes. • The paper surveys several compleme...

This chapter follows Lorenzo Magnani's observation that ongoing commercialization of science and academia impoverishes human potential for discovery. The chapter reviews Magnani on affordance, wonders what is accessible when "good" affordances appear absent, and answers self-affordance. Ecologies optimized for discovery should be optimized for self...

One approach to alignment with human values in AI and robotics is to engineer artificial systems isomorphic with human beings. The idea is that robots so designed may autonomously align with human values through similar developmental processes, to realize project ideal conditions through iterative interaction with social and object environments jus...

One approach to alignment with human values in AI and robotics is to engineer artiTicial systems isomorphic with human beings. The idea is that robots so designed may autonomously align with human values through similar developmental processes, to realize project ideal conditions through iterative interaction with social and object environments jus...

Edward Wilson wrote in Consilience that “Human history can be viewed through the lens of ecology as the accumulation of environmental prostheses” (1999 p 316), with technologies mediating our collective habitation of the Earth and its complex, interdependent ecosystems. Wilson emphasized the defining characteristic of complex systems, that they und...

Edward Wilson wrote in Consilience that "Human history can be viewed through the lens of ecology as the accumulation of environmental prostheses" (1999 p 316), with technologies mediating our collective habitation of the Earth and its complex, interdependent ecosystems. Wilson emphasized the defining characteristic of complex systems, that they und...

Recently in this journal, Jessica Morley and colleagues (AI & SOC 2023 38:411–423) review AI ethics and education, suggesting that a cultural shift is necessary to prepare students for their responsibilities in developing technology infrastructure that should shape ways of life for many generations. Current AI ethics guidelines are abstract and dif...

Sets out the spindle neuron hypothesis around development of meaning and value orientation considering Augustine and enactivism within the context of contemporary computational neuroscience.

Prior work proposes a view of development of purpose and source of meaning in life as a more or less temporally distal project ideal self-situation in terms of which intermediate situations are experienced and prospects evaluated. This work considers Augustine on ensoulment alongside current work into self as adapted routines to common social regul...

The article reflects on where AI is headed and the world along with it, considering trust, ethics and safety. Implicit in artificial thinking and doomsday appraisals is the engineered divorce from reality of sublime human embodiment. Jeffrey White, Dietrich Brandt, Jan Soeffner, and Larry Stapleton, four scholars associated with AI & Society, addre...

Recently in this journal, Jessica Morley and colleagues (AI & SOC 2023 38:411-423) review AI ethics and education, suggesting that a cultural shift is necessary in order to prepare students for their responsibilities in developing technology infrastructure that should shape ways of life for many generations. Current AI ethics guidelines are abstrac...

Reconciling contrary accounts of happiness from Augustine to enactivists in terms of developmental systems neurology with a question about the role of spindle neurons in grounding variable attunement to longer or shorter timespans and to inner or outer directed processes through extended self-development of genetically diverse human beings, with th...

Book review of Lorenzo Magnani Discoverability: The Urgent Need of an Ecology of Human Creativity (2022). Published version hosted by Springer Nature and openly accessible at https://rdcu.be/c4F29

Tonkens (Mind Mach, 19, 3, 421–438, 2009) has issued a seemingly impossible challenge, to articulate a comprehensive ethical framework within which artificial moral agents (AMAs) satisfy a Kantian inspired recipe—"rational" and "free"—while also satisfying perceived prerogatives of machine ethicists to facilitate the creation of AMAs that are perfe...

Augustine associates happiness with a context-independent, integrated sense of self. Ecological enactivists associate happiness with flexible adaptation to the context-dependent worldly multiplicity that Augustine finds inadequate. This paper proposes that adolescent development of default mode dynamics may ground the potential for a context-indepe...

The published paper is here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361308404_On_a_Possible_Basis_for_Metaphysical_Self-development_in_Natural_and_Artificial_Systems - Recent research into the nature of self in artificial and biological systems raises interest in a uniquely determining immutable sense of self, a "metaphysical 'I'" associated with...

Recent research into the nature of self in artificial and biological systems raises interest in a uniquely determining immutable sense of self, a "metaphysical 'I'" associated with inviolable personal values and moral convictions that remain constant in the face of environmental change, distinguished from an object "me" that changes with its enviro...

Recent research into the nature of self and self-consciousness in artificial and biological systems, in the context of current events, raise interest in formation of meaning in life as an uniquely determining immutable sense of self associated with inviolable personal values and moral convictions. Current research distinguishes between a pervasive...

Some artificial intelligence research applies theories about self and consciousness in design and interpretation of computational modeling experiments. However, different senses of self remain unresolved in natural systems, hindering progress in biologically inspired computational models. Recent work distinguishes between "me" and "I", locates "me"...

old project draft edited by the excellent Jared Gassen in maybe 2014, waiting for updates with recent research on orientation to the good.

Installment 2 of 4

Online first at link: https://rdcu.be/b6ruz

Pereira and Lopes (2020) reviewed for Prometheus (Pluto).

NOTE that newest drafts of this paper do not include the OyG discussion, including Wozniak, that is present in this draft. This draft does include that material. This material has since been developed into a seaprate paper on a possible basis for metaphysical self development in AI and NI. ___________________________________________________________...

NOTE: This was an early submission draft of two papers, now revised and in press. Please see the separate entries for Autonomous reboot parts 1 and 2 above. Part 1 is online with the journal here: https://rdcu.be/b6ruz __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________...

This was a draft for a journal that was radically revised and became a current paper under review.

Abstract: From his preliminary analysis in 1965, Hubert Dreyfus projected a future much different than those with which his con-temporaries were practically concerned, tempering their optimism in realizing something like human intelligence through conventional methods. At that time, he advised that there was nothing “directly” to be done toward mac...

NOTE: This paper has been published. Please see that PDF also posted above. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From his preliminary analysis in 1965, Hubert Dreyfus projected a future much different than those with which his contemporaries were practically conce...

From his preliminary analysis in 1965, Hubert Dreyfus projected a future much different than those with which his contemporaries were practically concerned, tempering their optimism in realizing something like human intelligence through conventional methods. At that time, he advised that there was nothing "directly" to be done toward machines with...

Artificial intelligence and robotics figure prominently in research concerning the potential for human beings to meet challenges facing human civilization going forward. This paper briefly reviews three different long-­-standing programs in AI and robotics, from Luis Pereira and colleagues, Ron Sun and colleagues, and Jun Tani and colleagues, with...

Published version of Infosphere to Ethosphere

This third paper locates the synthetic neurorobotics research reviewed in the second paper in terms of themes introduced in the first paper. It begins with biological non-­‐reductionism as understood by Searle. It emphasizes the role of synthetic neurorobotics studies in accessing the dynamic structure essential to consciousness with a focus on sys...

Second part of the three part series. Mostly reviewing Jun's work and bridging themes begun in part one and resolved in part 2.

(SEE LINKED RESEARCH BELOW TO DOWNLOAD ARTICLE AS PUBLISHED IN JOURNAL) Nick Bostrom's recently patched " simulation argument " (Bostrom, 2003, Bostrom and Kulczycki, 2011) purports to demonstrate the probability that we " live " now in an " ancestor simulation " – that is as a simulation of a period prior to that in which a civilization more advan...

As the utilization of intelligent machines spreads to numerous realms, the discourse of machine ethics has also developed and expanded. Concerns over machine intelligence and the role of automata in everyday life must be addressed before artificial intelligence and robotic technologies may be fully integrated into human society. Rethinking Machine...

The ultimate goal of research into computational intelligence is the construction of a fully embodied and fully autonomous artificial agent. This ultimate artificial agent must not only be able to act, but it must be able to act morally. In order to realize this goal, a number of challenges must be met, and a number of questions must be answered, t...

Psychopathy is increasingly in the public eye.However, it is yet to be fully and effectively understood.Within the context of the DSM-IV, for example, it is best regarded as a complex family of disorders.The upside is that this family can be tightly related along common dimensions.Characteristic marks of psychopaths include a lack of guilt and remo...

This paper reviews the complex, overlapping ideas of two prominent Italian philosophers, Lorenzo Magnani and Luciano Floridi, with the aim of facilitating the nonviolent transformation of self and world, and with a focus on information technologies in mediating this process. In Floridi's information ethics, problems of consistency arise between sel...

This paper reviews the complex, overlapping ideas of two prominent Italian philosophers, Lorenzo Magnani and Luciano Floridi, with the aim of facilitating the nonviolent transformation of self and world, and with a focus on information technologies in mediating this process. In Floridi's information ethics, problems of consistency arise between sel...

Recent developments, both in the cognitive sciences and in world events, bring special emphasis to the study of morality. The cognitive sciences, spanning neurology, psychology, and computational intelligence, offer substantial advances in understanding the origins and purposes of morality. Meanwhile, world events urge the timely synthesis of these...

NOTE: THE explanation of the ACTWith model has been slightly modified since this time, with more refined descriptions available for example in the more recent paper "Models of Moral Cognition"... ABSTRACT: Conscience is frequently cited and yet its mechanism is not understood. Conscience is most familiar as a voice protesting against actions which...

This paper is about modeling morality, with a proposal as to the best way to do it. There is the small problem, however, in continuing disagreements over what morality actually is, and so what is worth modeling. This paper resolves this problem around an understanding of the purpose of a moral model, and from this purpose approaches the best way to...