New in nature: Misunderstanding the harms of online misinfo nature.com/articles/s4158…

Debunks unsupported claims about social media exposure/effects and shows low exposure concentrated in motivated fringe. We recommend holding platforms accountable for exposure in high-risk tails

'our analysis reveals an unexpected non-correlation between opinion-policy congruence and electoral success. Governments that implement (or keep in place) policies with higher levels of support in the electorate do not do better in subsequent elections.'

sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

In a new essay, I argue that the problem with popular alarmism about 'misinformation' is not that it is too pessimistic about the state of media and public discourse. The problem is that it is not pessimistic enough. 1/5

I am speaking at this wonderful workshop on philosophy of artificial intelligence & social science topics this Friday at HKUST. If you are in Hong Kong, consider attending! Starts at 930am.

Our book on the psychology of effective altruism is now out, freely available on OUP (link below) Lucius Caviola

In Part I, we explain why most altruism - like donations and volunteering - isn't effective

In Part II, we discuss how to change that

1/13

academic.oup.com/book/56384

New paper (w/ Andi Schmidt)! We bridge the ethics literature on moral uncertainty with the political philosophy literaure on moral disagreement, suggesting moral uncertainty supports a weighty (but not overriding) requirement that laws be justified to all journals.publishing.umich.edu/phimp/article/…

Just out! A piece originally prompted by that irresponsible nature editorial last June, about ‘fearmongering’ about AI Risk. Thanks to Haydn Belfield, Matthew Connelly and Julian Huppert for help at various points!

royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

Shallow fakes: The scaremongering about deepfakes is making an elephant out of a molehill. journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11… The emergence of deepfakes has raised concerns among researchers, policymakers, and the public. However, many of these concerns stem from alarmism rather than

If you missed 'Two Types of AI Existential Risk' by Atoosa Kasirzadeh it's essential reading.

Building on a complex systems approach it explores how AI could make our societies more fragile to a shock, which would then have long-lasting implications.

arxiv.org/pdf/2401.07836

Here is my in-depth critique of the 'disinformation experts' whose work is cited as justification for the censorship industrial complex.
This new academic publication is available open access.
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

In this article published in Constitutional Political Economy, John Meadowcroft, of KCL Department of Political Economy, and Otto Lehto discuss James Buchanan's proposal for a form of universal basic income. Do take a look! link.springer.com/article/10.100…

I'm also interested in such questions!

Are the experts and organisations that fight 'disinformation' as objective as they claim to be? My new essay has some thoughts on the biases and blindspots of the influential 'Big Disinfo' complex that emerged in response to the populist revolts of 2016:
substack.com/home/post/p-14…

Very pleased to announce a new (open access!) paper by our collaboration.

Does the No Miracles Argument Apply to AI?

doi.org/10.1007/s11229… (1/5)

PPE people:

Adam Smith once wrote the following: 'What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom'.

Did Buchanan and Wagner write something similar in Democracy in Deficit? Or did they just quote Smith directly?

I'm looking forward to this event the HKCRC is organizing in collaboration with the Mimir Center and the Project for Innovative Ethics.