Philosophy, Technology, and AI. "The problem with artificial intelligence is (still) that computers don't (yet?) give a damn."
| Platform |  | Pricing | Only free issues | Publishes | Weekly |
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withoutwhy.substack.comLatest Issues
The Ambivalent Allure of Automation
Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 1, as assembled in 1833, exhibited 1862, and later in the South Kensington Museum. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
How can we harness and orchestrate the awesome powers of automation while preserving t...
Seeing Like a Self-Driving Car
Screenshot from “Their Eyes” by Nicolas Gourault (2025)
“Their Eyes”
Earlier this week, I attended a screening of films about AI at Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive. The program, “Push Buttons and AI,” featured 5 shorts and they were al...
A Teaser Video of My Heidegger Course
This illustration is adapted from Richard Polt’s book, Heidegger: An Introduction.
Enriching the Philosophical Horizon for Thinking About AI
I started Without Why in December 2024 with the mission to broaden the philosophical horizon o...
Consciousness, Agency, and the Problem of Artificial Selves
YouTube Thumbnail. The imagery is adapted rom Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s uncanny and captivating 1973 made-for-TV science-fiction melodrama, Welt am Draht
Check This Out
Today I am sharing video of a talk I gave on the “Workshop” Day a...
Video of my talk "Machine Consciousness & Moral Vertigo"
Check This Out
Back at the end of May, I gave a talk on “Machine Consciousness and Moral Vertigo” at the Machine Consciousness 0001 event put on by the at Lighthaven in Berkeley. CIMC has recently finished uploading videos of the event...
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B.’s substack, "Without Why," focuses on what it means to be alive in an age of intelligent machines. He is a lecturer and visiting scholar in Philosophy at UC Berkeley and an affiliate researcher at Topos Institute. He also drums in 3 punk bands.
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