Language, Technology, & Care

Abstract: This talk explores "care" as a missing dimension in contemporary discussions on technology, using debates around LLMs and AI alignment as a case study. Our civilization’s technological prowess is largely identified with abstraction and optimization—powers that have yielded immense benefits but which have also reshaped our relationship with reality. Increasingly, our drive to abstract and optimize takes on a life of its own, leading both technologists and non-technologists alike to engage with the world primarily through questions of modeling, measurement, and control. But what we care about cannot be appropriately tended to in such an instrumental framework, for it lacks a defined ultimate goal, a why for which we model, measure, and control. Our challenge is designing how to pursue technological progress within a broader context of care, not mere "values" that are relative to imperatives of efficiency and optimization.

Computer sciencecategory theorylogic

Audience: learners

( video )

Topos Institute Colloquium