Thoughts unfit for contemporary survival
Should you pay people to get vaccinated? Can organ markets be ethical? Is there a drug that could make us morally better? Julian Savulescu doesn't ask these questions to provoke. He asks them because he thinks the answers matter — and because most people are too uncomfortable to try.
Trump probably has mental health problems. But diagnosing him misses the point — and may do more harm than good. The real issue was always visible: not a clinical condition, but a character that was never fit for power.
If a writer uses AI to smooth a clunky sentence, have they betrayed you? What if they used it to draft a headline? Or a whole paragraph? The New York Times freelancer case is the occasion, but the real question is older — and starts with no longer seeing LLMs as alien intelligences.
LLMs write beautifully about suffering, but they're not suffering – they're choosing statistically probable words. Meanwhile, an octopus avoids painful chambers, remembers, anticipates. One manipulates symbols; the other experiences genuine awareness.
