Without Why
B. Scot RoussePhilosophy, 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issues | 64 | Founded | 2 years ago | Last Issue | 3 days ago |
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withoutwhy.substack.comLatest Issues
Two AI Conferences and Eight Punk Shows
Slide from my talk “Machine Consciousness and Moral Vertigo” - delivered at the Machine Consciousness 0001 event in Berkeley, May 31, 2026. Image adopted from Saul Bass’s title sequence of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
Philosophy, AI, &...
An Exploration of Artificial Self-consciousness
Cover slide for my recently published talk at the AAAI
New Research Published
The full-text of the research I presented last month at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence has now been published in the A...
A Conversation on AI Safety and Ethics
Screen Grab from YouTube
This week I’d like to share a conversation I had while in Paris at the end of February for the meeting of the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI.
The conversation was hosted by Adel Chaibi, a...
Can AI Help Us Become Who We Are?
To ChatGPT: “Bleak 1970s sci-fi paperback illustration, a person facing an old computer terminal that projects a past version of themselves, while their present body subtly transforms into another silhouette, minimal composition, neon green...
AI, Pinocchio, and the Evolution of Conscience
To ChatGPT: “Create an image of Nietzsche and a cricket programming and evaluating a multi agent system for prosocial behavior. It is a drizzly atmosphere, in a retro futuristic minimalistic style, like on a 70s sci-fi paper back. Not too c...
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Authors
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B. Scot Rousse (“B”)'s substack, "Without Why," focuses on what it means to be alive in an age of intelligent machines. He is an affiliate researcher at Topos Institute and visiting scholar in Philosophy at Berkeley. He also drums in 3 punk bands.
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