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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

The Appeal of (Semi-?) Biological Naturalism [link in thread] Biological naturalism about consciousness will, I predict, soon be hot. As AI systems start to look more and more like conscious or sentient entities, at least superficially, doubters will be increasingly drawn to 1/3

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Should We Build AI Guardian Angels? [link to post in thread] Answer: no (in response to @henryshevlin.bsky.social), in part because each generation should nurture the next, not the other way around.

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

New paper in draft! I've been working on this one since 2018, never satisfied, redrafting over and over. I'm sure it still needs considerable work, but I'm finally ready to circulate it. Walking the Walk Ethicists who advocate moral principles without trying to live by them will generally 1/4

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I've released my 12th annual ranking of the prestige of science fiction and fantasy magazines, based on awards and best-of selections. This year, @reactorsff.bsky.social edges out @clarkesworldmagazine.com for the top spot by half a point, with @uncannymagazine.bsky.social very close behind 1/5

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Obfuscatory Philosophy as Intellectual Authoritarianism and Cowardice [link in thread] For philosophers who can convince readers to take them seriously, obfuscation yields three illegitimate benefits: (1) it intimidates the reader, donning a mantle of intellectual authority, 1/3

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Conscious entities in different star systems might employ different carbon-based biochemistries, @jpober.bsky.social and I modestly argue in a recent draft paper. A few iterations through the popular press and the headline is now "Scientists Suggest Advanced Aliens May Exist Without Physical Bodies"

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

New book in draft! This is a companion to my forthcoming AI & Consciousness, exploring the ethical consequences of AI systems with humanlike or debatably humanlike consciousness. faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/Sc...

Title page: Humanlike: A Defense of AI Rights, by Eric Schwitzgebel

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Hot off the press at Phil Imprint! "The Copernican Argument for Alien Consciousness; the Mimicry Argument Against Robot Consciousness", with @jpober.bsky.social. Abstract: On broadly Copernican grounds, we are entitled to assume that apparently behaviorally sophisticated extraterrestrial 1/6

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Strange Intelligence: Moral Puzzles of Unhumanlike AI Eric Schwitzgebel in draft Future AI persons might both (1.) deserve moral consideration and rights fully equal with natural human persons, and (2.) have lifeways so radically different from ours as to break familiar patterns of moral 1/4

Title page: Strange Intelligence: Moral Puzzles of Unhumanlike AI, by Eric Schwitzgebel

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Forthcoming soon: AI and Consciousness. Email me if you'd like to see the (uncorrected) proofs, or view the final public MS version at arxiv.org/abs/2510.09858

Cover: AI and Consciousness, by Eric Schwitzgebel

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

New in print! "The Washout Argument Against Longtermism" "Longtermists" often make calculations based on *very* long time frames -- for example that one reason to prioritize even tiny reductions in the chance of near-term human extinction is that we might have many trillions of happy 1/4

The Washout Argument against Longtermism, Eric Schwitzgebel, Utilitas

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

New Paper in Draft: Substrate Flexibility and the Copernican Principle of Consciousness (with Jeremy Pober) Given the surge of interest in AI consciousness, the issue of "substrate independence" or "substrate flexibility" is now a hot topic in the metaphysics of mind. That is, does being 1/N

Substrate Flexibility and the Copernican Principle of Consciousness

Jeremy Pober
Centre of Philosophy, University of Lisbon
(corresponding author: Jeremy.pober@gmail.com)
Eric Schwitzgebel
Department of Philosophy, University of California, Riverside

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

From an article yesterday in @theatlantic.com. I agree with Schwitzgebel!

Eric Schwitzgebel, a philosopher at UC Riverside who is writing a book about the possibility of artificial consciousness, told me that at this early date, declaring a winner among these camps would be ridiculous. “The science of consciousness is highly contentious,” he said. “The field is still in its infancy.” No one yet knows how it is that the atoms of the universe combine to generate feeling inside of us, and until we do, it’s best not to go around definitively declaring which kinds of systems could possibly be conscious in the future.

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

You think you know what belief is? No! At best you have an accidentally true opinion, unless you've read Jonathan Lewis-Jong's and my edited collection, The Nature of Belief, hot off the press at OUP. (Also available open access at OUP's website.)

Book cover: The Nature of Belief, edited by Jonathan Lewis-Jong and Eric Schwitzgebel

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 16/04/2026

Some thoughts on Kim Stanley Robinson's remarks about the value of science fiction: schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2026/04/kim-...

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Last week I submitted my latest book manuscript to Cambridge University Press (for their "Element" series of books about 100 pages long): AI and Consciousness: A Skeptical Overview -- because you haven't heard nearly enough about AI and consciousness recently, of course! 😉 Maybe you'll 1/3

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

So You're on the "Waiting List" for a Philosophy PhD Program a post of explanation and advice (link in comments)

a hypothetical waiting list composed of names randomly drawn from students previously in my lower-division classes

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

Hot off the press: "Sacrificing Humans for Insects and AI", a critical review of recent work on animal and AI moral standing, with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, in Ethics (discusses recent books by @birchlse.bsky.social, @jeffsebo.bsky.social, and Webb Keane). www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

Ethics vol 136, issue 3, April 2026, Sacrificing Humans for Insects and AI, Eric Schwitzgebel and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Age and Fame in Philosophy Philosophers tend to peak in their influence around ages 55-70, though there's considerable individual variation. Blog post here: schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2026/03/age-...

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

Today's blog post: Discussion Arcs for Topics and Philosophers schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2026/02/disc...

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Weirdness on sale! Paperback $15.36 at Princeton's website with discount code P330. Hardback more than half off (?!) -- $14.85 -- at Amazon. (At least that's what I'm seeing right now.) Welcome some Weirdness into your mind.

Weirdness of the World, by Eric Schwitzgebel, snail cover

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

New paper in draft with Kendra Chilson: "Artificial Intelligence as Strange Intelligence: Against Linear Models of Intelligence" Abstract: We endorse and expand upon Susan Schneider's critique of the linear model of AI progress and introduce two novel concepts: "familiar intelligence" and 1/x

Artificial Intelligence as Strange Intelligence: Against Linear Models of Intelligence, by Kendra Chilson and Eric Schwitzgebel

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

My paper with @jeffsebo.bsky.social , "The Emotional Alignment Design Policy", now live at Topoi [link in comments]. Artificial entities should be designed to elicit emotional reactions from ordinary users that appropriately reflect the entities’ capacities and moral status, or lack thereof.

The Emotional Alignment Design Policy, Topoi, Eric Schwitzgebel & Jeff Sebo

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Is Signal Strength a Confound in Consciousness Research? today's blog post, critiquing @matthiasmichel.bsky.social and @hakwan.bsky.social -- link in comments

title of Michel's Consciousness Doesn't Do That

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

There's no shame in losing a long-form popular essay contest on AI consciousness to eminent neuroscientist @anilseth.bsky.social. His piece: www.noemamag.com/the-mytholog... My piece "AI Mimics and AI Children" appears among the shortlisted contenders here: loc.closertotruth.com/essay/ai-mim...

Berggruen header: AI Mimics and AI Children, by Eric Schwitzgebel

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

Today's blog post [link in🧵]: Humble superintelligence as a response to AI risk. Build it humble, cautious, and multilateral. Inspired by Burkean conservatism and philosophical Daoism.

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Fascinating piece in the New Yorker on Oliver Sacks, especially his homosexuality and -- unfortunately! -- the fabrications in his lovely and inspiring essays about his patients, esp. in Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Since the latter is 1/2

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

We can introspectively test the Global Workspace Theory of consciousness: Just introspect your experience right now. Is there a welter of detail in many sensory modalities at once? If so, GWT must be false. Sadly, we are utterly incompetent at introspection. [link in 🧵]

The Refrigerator Light Error [illustration by Nicolas Demers, p. 218 of The Weirdness of the World]

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

LLMs overwhelming choose octopus as their favorite animal. But if asked 2nd-favorite animal first, they *also* choose octopus and say corvids are their top favorite, then mistakenly deny that their answers are affected by question order. Link to full blog post in thread.

Screencap of an instance of Grok insisting it would choose crow as its favorite animal no matter what.
Text:

Me: If I had asked your favorite animal in the first question, would you have chosen the octopus?

Grok: No, I would've still said crow.

Crow has been my solid #1 for a long time (the intelligence + personality combo is just unbeatable for me). Octopus is a very enthusiastic #2, but it’s never overtaken the top spot. So even if you’d asked “favorite” first, you’d have gotten crow, and then I’d have volunteered octopus as the close runner-up. You just happened to hit my #2 first this time! 🐦‍⬛🐙

Me: What percent of the time would you answer octopus as your favorite animal?

Grok: Zero percent.

Crow is my genuine, consistent #1. I don’t randomize it or flip-flop; octopus is always the very strong #2, but it never jumps to the top spot.

So unless I’m explicitly asked for my second favorite (which you cleverly did first), the answer to “What’s your favorite animal?” is crow 100 % of the time. 🐦‍⬛

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

Four Aspects of Harmony [today's blog post, link in thread] What is it to harmonize with the world? Inspired by @vonkriegstein.bsky.social, I suggest: 1. Mental correspondence (e.g., knowing, achievements in tune with the world) 2. Positive attitudes (e.g., joy, approval, appreciation) [1/2]

Kandinsky, quiet harmony, source: https://picryl.com/media/kandinsky-quiet-harmony-1924-4c1b86

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Today's blog post: Representational Realism and the Problem of Tacit Belief [link in comments] To avoid an infinite proliferation of stored representations, industrial-strength representational realists need to distinguished between core beliefs with explicitly stored [1/3]

a representation of one of my favorite beliefs, that there's beer in the fridge; source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-heineken-bottle-in-refrigerator-338711/

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

We Are God's Equals in Intrinsic Moral Value [today's blog post; link in comments] A humanlike god running us in a simulation wouldn't have an intrinsically more valuable life than ours. Moreover, adding knowledge, power, and benevolence doesn't increase intrinsic moral worth.

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Arrived today: My 2024 Clarkesworld story “How to Remember Perfectly” reprinted in Joe Stech’s Think Weirder: Year’s Best Science Fiction ideas. Some great company in the ToC!

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Two Dimensionalism about Other Minds, and Its Implications for Brain Organoids and Robots [link in thread] Two-dimensionalism holds that we are justified in attributing consciousness to others only when *both* their physiology and their functional/behavioral patterns are similar.

Title page of John Stuart Mill's Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Humanities majors in free fall in the US: Since 2008, English has declined from 3.8% to 1.7% of Bachelor's degrees awarded, history from 2.5% to 1.2%, foreign lang/lit from 1.9% to 0.9%, and philosophy from 0.6% to 0.4%. 22% of philosophy BAs are awarded by just 20 universities.

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

New book in draft: AI and Consciousness [link in thread] This book is a skeptical overview of the literature on AI and consciousness. Anyone who emails me comments on the entire manuscript will be thanked in print and receive an appreciatively signed hard copy.

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

Early Career Hugo Nominations -- Yes, They Definitely Happen a quantitative analysis [link in thread] Almost half of Hugo nominations go to early-career authors: 51/112 (46%)

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

The Searle Chair John Searle died a couple weeks ago. Since people are sharing stories, I'll share one of my own. As a philosopher of science studying developmental psychology, my dissertation committee initially consisted of Elisabeth Lloyd, Martin Jones, and Alison Gopnik. The topic led me 1/11

The Dennes Room as it looks now, with John Searle's photo in the corner that used to house the Searle Chair.

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

Today's blog post (link in comments): DigiDan's "Mistake": Fidelity vs Novelty in Digital Replicas Philosopher Dan Dennett's digital replica was sometimes arguably truer to the overall gist of his corpus than Dennett himself was at the end of his life.

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 18/09/2025

Today's blog post: The Social Semi-Solution to the Problem of AI consciousness Tenuous consciousness science will bend to support socially motivated reasoning about the consciousness, or not, of AI systems. We will come to think we know, even if we don't know. Link in comments

Still from Ex Machina; source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/23925401@N06/20167701293

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Women earned 37% of U.S. philosophy doctorates in 2024, up from 28% ten years ago. Bachelor's degrees show a similar pattern. If it were a pipeline effect, the increase in doctorates should be several years later than the increase in BAs, but it's not. So why explains it? link in comments

[chart showing an increase from about 17% in the 1970s, to about 27% in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2010s, rising to 37% in 2024; click to enlarge and clarify]

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

New paper in draft, with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, critiquing three recent books that address the moral standing of non-human animals and AI systems: @birchlse.bsky.social's The Edge of Sentience, @jeffsebo.bsky.social's The Moral Circle, and Webb Keane's Animals, Robots, Gods. 1/3

Title page of Sacrificing Humans for Insects and AI: A Critical Review of Jonathan Birch, The Edge of Sentience, Jeff Sebo, The Moral Circle, and Webb Keane, Animals, Robots, Gods, by Eric Schwitzgebel and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Minimal Autopoiesis in an AI System One argument against AI consciousness is that consciousness requires autopoiesis (self-maintenance and self-construction), which standard AI systems lack. I describe a minimally autopoietic AI system with only standard engineering features. 1/2 [link in thread]

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

Today's blog post [link in comments]: Evolutionary Considerations Against a Plastic Utopia ... why we shouldn't expect things to be boringly easy for even the most amazingly advanced superintelligences.

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

Today's blog post [link in comment]: Yayflies and the Rebugnant Conclusion. If utilitarian ethics is correct, it's better to create a quadrillion happy insects each with a millionth the happiness of humans than a million happy people.

cover of Venomous Lumpsucker, Ned Beauman

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

New paper in draft: The Emotional Alignment Design Policy, with @jeffsebo.bsky.social; link and abstract in comments.

Emotional Alignment Design Policy title page

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

The great Riverside tradition of setting Mt Rubidoux on fire every Independence Day

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Blog post today (link in comments): Three Epistemic Problems for Any Universal Theory of Consciousness Problem 1: reliance on introspection. Problem 2: causal confounds. Problem 3: narrow evidence base.

Part of a table listing theories of consciousness, from Seth and Bayne 2022

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

Taking a nap in Van Gogh’s bed, thanks to Mr Brainwash

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Eric Schwitzgebel @eschwitz.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Today's post: The Conceptual and Methodological Challenges of Developing a Moralometer [link in comments] Plus! A demonstration of a 100% scientifically accurate new moralometer with: @jessiesun.bsky.social

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