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Reposted by Nina Van Rooy

Philosophy of Animal Minds and Behavior Association @pamba.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

PAMBA 2027 April 27-29 at Warwick. Join us for bluebells, a castle walk, and great talks! Keynotes: Heather Browning @zoophilosophy.bsky.social Cameron Buckner @cameronbuckner.bsky.social Stephen Butterfill Paco Calvo Garzon Marta Halina @martahalina.bsky.social Susana Monsó @susanamonso.com

the-pamba.com

Conferences & other meetings — PAMBA

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Nina Van Rooy @ninavanrooy.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Recently I gave a talk on philosophy of animal cognition at NC State, hosted by North Carolina Animal Advocates! I had a great time and got such good questions in the Q&A. Thanks all for coming! #animalminds #philosophy

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Nina Van Rooy @ninavanrooy.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Next week Saturday, I am giving a public lecture on philosophy of animal minds at NC State! Full details: What: lecture by Nina Van Rooy, 'Human-Centered Bias in the Study of Animal Minds' When: Saturday Sept 5th, 11 am - 1 pm Where: Talley Student Union, Room 3285, NC State University, Raleigh

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Nina Van Rooy @ninavanrooy.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

The ball is rolling! Really excited that our paper showing no norm effects on causal judgments with continuous causes is now up as a preprint! See the thread by @kevingoneill.github.io in the post below for an overview of what we do in this paper. #psychology #x-phi

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Nina Van Rooy @ninavanrooy.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

But additionally, even when we have artificial systems that meet basic psychological prerequisites for ToM, standard ToM tests would not be sufficient to provide evidence for ToM because we need to rule out plausible alternative explanations. Curious to hear if this answers your question!

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Nina Van Rooy @ninavanrooy.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Those two arguments taken together, I think, get me to a position where I am somewhat sceptical that current LLMs can have ToM, though I wouldn't call it Impossible, and certainly the constraints on LLM ToM are more practical in nature than they are weighty metaphysical constraints.

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Nina Van Rooy @ninavanrooy.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

The second argument, at least when viewed separately from the first, suggests that we can still just use the f-b test as a test for ToM in LLMs, but we need to do additional testing to rule out alternative explanations for their performance on ToM tests.

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Nina Van Rooy @ninavanrooy.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

The first argument in my paper about psychological prerequisites for ToM does suggest quite strongly that, unless some radical changes are made to how currently LLMs are built, it doesn't make sense to talk of them as having ToM.

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Nina Van Rooy @ninavanrooy.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Sorry I missed this message! The answer two both of these is 'no'. I do not make specific proposals for alternative ToM tests, but that doesn't mean I think that it is impossible for an LLM to have ToM. Admittedly, the two arguments in my paper kind of pull in different directions here (cont'd).

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Nina Van Rooy @ninavanrooy.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

My preprint on theory of mind in large language models is up! I argue that we cannot simply transfer a psychological measure designed to test for ToM in biological organisms to a complex artificial system and assume it measures the same thing. Comments welcome. philpapers.org/rec/VANDGH-2

The first page of a PDF preprint paper titled 'Does GPT-4 Have Theory of Mind? Testing for Familiar Cognitive Capacities in Large Language Models' by Nina Van Rooy.

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Kristof Dhont @kristofdhontphd.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Our review on #speciesism is now out in Nature Reviews Psychology. rdcu.be/foTDx We synthesise research on how people think about animals, morally rank species, and justify animal exploitation and consumption. A pleasure to work on this with @gordonhodsonphd.bsky.social @springernature.com

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Jeremy Diamond ☕️ @dmnd.me · 09/07/2026

Would be incredibly funny if the IOC and FIFA had a huge fight about this. The two most corrupt international organizations at last having a championship match to decide who is the most corrupt

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Micah @rincewind.run · 09/07/2026

I am shocked, shocked that the man who invented the FIFA peace prize just so he could give it to Donald Trump might have committed some sort of breach of political neutrality well, not that shocked

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Nina Van Rooy @ninavanrooy.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Well, what a GREAT game!!! 🇧🇪

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Reposted by Nina Van Rooy

The New York Times @nytimes.com · 07/07/2026

Breaking News: Nigel Farage, the leader of the populist right-wing Reform UK party, said he would resign as a lawmaker, setting off a special election. The move comes after revelations about gifts and financial support he received.

nyti.ms

Farage Says He Will Resign From UK’s Parliament, Setting Off a By-Election: Live Updates

Nigel Farage, leader of the populist right-wing party Reform U.K., has come under increasing pressure after a series of revelations about undisclosed gifts and donations.

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