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Research

I have research interests in epistemology and the ethics of AI.

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Concerning the ethics of AI, I have written about algorithmic fairness, accountability, and transparency. Currently, I am working on a project that appeals to the notion of understanding as the fundamental concept for thinking about how to alleviate the opacity of complex AI systems. I also argue that explainable AI (XAI) methods can be seen as a kind of idealized scientific modeling. This "models of models" approach suggests that XAI methods are more promising as a means of alleviating opacity than some have feared. It also promises some guidance on development of future XAI methods.

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My research in epistemology concerns inquiry, intellectual virtue, and the nature of epistemic normativity. For instance, I am interested in what kinds of reasons and values researchers should be sensitive to during inquiry, and in the kinds of attitudes it is rational for researchers to have to their theories. I have argued that it is often irrational to believe one's favored theory; instead, the appropriate attitude is one that I call endorsement. This attitude is rationally sensitive to epistemic considerations that go beyond evidence. I call these considerations inquisitive reasons.

Publications

  1. Epistemic Practices: A unified account of epistemic and zetetic normativity. Forthcoming in Noûs. Preprint.

  2. A Defense of Endorsement. Forthcoming in Attitude in Philosophy, S.C. Goldberg and M. Walker (eds), OUP. Preprint.

  3. Intellectual Courage and Inquisitive Reasons. Philosophical Studies 180(4) 1343–1371. Preprint.

  4. Fragmentation and Old Evidence. Episteme. 20 (3): 542–567. Preprint. Supplementary material.

  5. Responsibility for Collective Epistemic Harms​, (with Dunja Šešelja). Philosophy of Science 90(1): 1–20. 2023. Preprint.

  6. Understanding, Idealization, and Explainable AI. Episteme 19(4): 534–560. 2022. Open access.

  7. Pursuit and Inquisitive Reasons​. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 94: 17–30. 2022. Preprint.

  8. What's Fair about Individual Fairness? In Proceedings of the 2021 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES '21). Preprint.

  9. RAWLSNET: Altering Bayesian Networks to Encode Rawlsian Fair Equality of Opportunity. (with Tina Eliassi-Rad, Scott Alfeld, David Liu, and Zohair Shafi). In Proceedings of the 2021 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES '21). Open access.

  10. How to Endorse Conciliationism. Synthese 198 (10): 9913-9939. 2021. Preprint.

  11. Endorsement and Assertion. Noûs 55(2): 363–384. 2021. Preprint.

  12. Publishing without (Some) Belief. Thought 9 (4): 237–246. 2020. Preprint.

  13. Epistemic Circularity and Method Coherence. Erkenntnis 84 (2): 455–480. 2019. Preprint.

  14. Rational Endorsement. Philosophical Studies, 175 (10): 2649–2675, 2018. Preprint.

  15. Virtuous Distinctions. Synthese, 194 (8):2973–3003, 2017. Preprint.

Public Philosophy

Philosophy Phriday: Ruining Picnics with Epistemology. A blog post I wrote about ants.
 

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