David Gunkel
Professor - Northern Illinois University (USA). Award-winning author of the books The Machine Question, Robot Rights, Person-Thing-Robot, Of Remixology, and Deconstruction. https://gunkelweb.com
- "Communicative #AI" - Finland 🇫🇮 Book launch of the simultaneously published Finnish translation of "Communicative #AI" @rosebudbooks.bsky.social www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...
- The "Communicative #AI" book launch in Prague 🇨🇿 went extremely well. Really good turnout with insightful and interesting questions/comments from those in attendance. @politybooks.bsky.social @coeckelbergh.bsky.social politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...
- Beginning in 10 minutes...book launch of the Finnish translation of "Communicative #AI" @politybooks.bsky.social Rosebud Books
- - T-minus 180 minutes and counting - Book launch for "Communicative #AI" @politybooks.bsky.social 5pm at the Center for Environmental and Technology Ethics - Prague 🇨🇿
- - Death of the Author - Visited the grave of Vilém Flusser at the New Jewish Cemetery in Prague 🇨🇿 in preparation for tomorrow's talk "Does Writing Have a Future?" a title that is indebted to Flusser's book "Die Schrift. Hat Schreiben Zukunft?" (1987).
- 🇨🇿 Prague - Spent Sunday afternoon with the Čapek bros. Saw a bunch of paintings by Josef (the painter and originator of the term #Robot) and a first edition of his brother Karel's R.U.R. With thanks to Tomas Hribek for organizing and playing tour guide.
- It is appropriate that we launch "Communicative #AI" @politybooks.bsky.social in Prague. For it was here at the Old-New Synagogue that rabbi Jehuda Löw ben Bezalel brought the Golem to life. And like the Golem of clay, the #LLM is also animated by a "shem" (aka "magic words").
- It's publication day! "Communicative #AI: A Critical Introduction to Large Language Models" @politybooks.bsky.social is now out and available. Co-authored with @coeckelbergh.bsky.social
- 🇨🇿 Communicative #AI - Prague In addition to the book launch on 14 May, 5pm Academy of Sciences (Národní 3), we will also have a seminar at the Institute of Philosophy (Jilská 1), where @coeckelbergh.bsky.social and I will do a deep dive into two of the chapters of our @politybooks.bsky.social book.
- 🇨🇿 Book Launch - Prague, CZ - 14 May 2025 "Communicative #AI: A Critical Introduction to #LLMs" @politybooks.bsky.social
- The Digital Bar Mitzvah New radio op ed on WNIJ Northern Public Radio. www.northernpublicradio.org/wnij-news/20...
- In "#AI Wars: How Corporations Hijacked Anti-AI Backlash" Alex Avila breaks down the current #AI hype debate in a way that is both informative and entertaining. Really pleased to have had the opportunity to contribute to the effort. youtu.be/lRq0pESKJgg?...
- T-minus 8 days and counting. "Communicative #AI: A Critical Introduction to #LLMs" will begin shipping on 9 May 2025 in the UK followed by a 9 June release date in the rest of the world. @politybooks.bsky.social www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...
- Reposted by David Gunkel[Not loaded yet]
- 🇬🇭"Can/Should #AI be Persons?" Emergent Personhood workshop at University of Ghana. The problem is not deciding whether #AI is a Person or a Thing. The problem is with this mutually exclusive (and largely Western) binary opposition that restricts the decision-making.
- Tomorrow I will be presenting "Can/Should #AI be Persons?" during the international symposium "Emergent Personhood: A Philosophy from Africa and the West." Sponsored by University of Washington Bioethics & Humanities and the University of Ghana.
- For anyone who missed the Does Writing Have a Future? presentation during the @volkswagenstiftung.de event in Hannover 🇩🇪 this essay (published in "The Routledge Handbook of #AI and Literature") pretty much provides you access to what it was all about. @ssrn.bsky.social dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...
- The very statements that got @blakelemoine.bsky.social fired from Google in the summer of 2022 are now the conditions of employment for Kyle Fish at @anthropic.com Who could have seen this coming? I did in the 2012 book "The Machine Question" @mitpress.bsky.social
- As the guy who wrote the book on #robot and #AI #rights, I've got a few words--actually somewhere around 200 pages worth--of advice about this question. @mitpress.bsky.social mitpress.mit.edu/978026255157...
- It's nice when the rest of the world finally catches up to your research. This is THE MACHINE QUESTION @mitpress.bsky.social 2012: "But can ChatGPT experience joy or suffering? Does Gemini deserve human rights?" @kevinroose.com @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/t...
- T-minus 45 minutes and counting. "Does Writing have a Future?" keynote address at the @volkswagenstiftung.de "#AI and the Society of the Future" conference. Xplanatorium Hannover, Germany. Presentation based on research initially developed for the book "Communicative #AI" @politybooks.bsky.social
- Final Symposium #AI and the Society of the Future at the @volkswagenstiftung.de Xplanatorium in Hannover, Germany. My keynote "Does Writing have a Future?" (title borrowed from Vilém Flusser) will be tomorrow (24 April). Definitely the classiest venue I have had the opportunity to present in.
- An Outline of Enactive Relationalism in the Philosophy and Ethics of Robotics." New essay from Abootaleb Safdari and published in "Philosophy & Technology" @springernature.com link.springer.com/article/10.1...
- #LLMs and the Death of the Author Open discussion at ZeMKI @zemki.bsky.social @unibremen.bsky.social My thanks to @ahepp.bsky.social for organizing the event and to all the participants for their really interesting and insightful questions/comments.
- Reposted by David Gunkel[Not loaded yet]
- If we now tend to include the parrot emoji for "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models Be Too Big? 🦜" then it seems we could write the title to our new essay like this: "💩 Cut the Crap: A Critical Response to ChatGPT is Bullshit." link.springer.com/article/10.1...
- "LLMs and the Death of the Author" Tuesday 22 April 2025 at 10am @zemki.bsky.social - Linzer Str. 4, 28359 Bremen comai.space/en/llms-and-...
- Cut the Crap: A Critical Response to 'ChatGPT is Bullshit.' New #openaccess article co-authored with Simon Coghlan and published in "Ethics and Information Technology" @springer1842.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...
- Cut the Crap: A Critical Response to 'ChatGPT is Bullshit.' New #openaccess article co-authored with Simon Colton and published in "Ethics and Information Technology" @springer1842.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...
- On Tuesday (22 April) I will be at @unibremen.bsky.social for a panel discussion hosted by @zemki.bsky.social Looking forward to hanging out with @ahepp.bsky.social and colleagues to talk about LLMs and the death of the author. zemki.uni-bremen.de/en/open-disc...
- Q: What is the most beneficial aspect of AI? (asked by a high school student via email) A: AI provides us with the opportunity to interrogate our own sense of exceptionalism in a way that can help us perceive our shared kinship with other animal, the environment, and artifacts.
- "Does Writing have a Future?" Keynote address next week during the @volkswagenstiftung.de "AI and the Society of the Future" final symposium at the Xplanitorium Herrenhausen Palace, Hannover, Germany 🇩🇪
- Should #AI be a (legal) person or a thing? The real problem is with this artificial dichotomy that we have inherited from Roman law. And it is this problem that is addressed in "Person, Thing, Robot" @mitpress.bsky.social bit.ly/Gunkel-PTR thehill.com/opinion/tech... @thehill.com
- Finnish translation of "Communicative #AI" @politybooks.bsky.social will be published at the same time that the English language version hits the streets in mid-May 2025. And the cover for the translation makes reference to the "Stochatic Parrot," which we directly confront and take on.
- I know it's low hanging fruit, but someone had to do it. With thanks to Linda McMahon for the inspiration.
- Posthumanism Victory Lap! American philosopher Donna Haraway, author of “A Cyborg Manifesto,” has been named the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by La Biennale di Venezia. www.world-architects.com/en/architect...
- #GenerativeAI and #Remix My chapter in the second edition of "The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies" is now out and available. With contributions from many of the big names in #remix studies. www.routledge.com/The-Routledg...
- New Essay on #AI Personhood "Non-human Persons and Other Things" published in "Humanism and Artificial Intelligence" ed. by Rosa Fioravante and Antonino Vaccaro. @springernature.com doi.org/10.1007/978-...
- New review of "Person, Thing, Robot" @mitpress.bsky.social by Hayate Shimisu and published in the journal "Contemporary Philosophy of Life" 現代生命哲学研究 www.philosophyoflife.org/jp/seimei202...
- Incredible turn out for today's "Person, Thing, Robot" presentation at UNC charlotte. My thanks to Min Jiang for organizing the event, to Gordon Hull and the Center for Professional and Applied Ethics for hosting it, and to the 200+ who joined us. @mitpress.bsky.social
- Quite possibly the best feedback I have received on the "Person, Thing, Robot" @mitpress.bsky.social presentation at UNC Charlotte. Thanks!
