About us
You may sometimes wonder about fundamental things. Philosophers incline to it non-stop. At their best, they make trouble in the world of ideas. They open worm cans. Bring your can openers!
We have explored — or will (or will again) — age-old topics like God's existence, the nature of people and things, truth, justice, knowledge, free will, determinism, fatalism, birth, death, the right way to live or die... as well as theories in the major divisions of philosophical thought such as logic, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. Exploring these core areas can help with understanding what is at stake in the more concrete topics we also address, which include controversies around abortion, infanticide, capital punishment, suicide (physician-assisted and otherwise), economic and social equality, criminality, genetic engineering, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, technology, over-population, depopulation, war, terrorism, racism, sexism, feminism, transhumanism, antinatalism, procreation ethics, speciesism, sexuality, human "rights," animal rights, the "rights" of (or to) anything whatsoever!,... as well as important issues in medical ethics, political philosophy, environmental ethics, bioethics, philosophy of law, of art, of literature, of religion, of science and its methods; and the nature, history, and methods of philosophy itself... not to exclude philosophical topics as yet uninvented.
In fact, "inventing topics" is a side effect of asking hard questions, which inevitably lead to still harder questions. Often enough, "new" topics are not really "new" but old, even ancient, unsettled concerns resurfacing. And it is those unsettled issues that are the real philosophical problems. As one philosopher once said, "If it has a solution, it was probably just science anyway." Any important subject whose fundamental ideas invite critical examination is ripe for our can opener... eventually we may work our way up to the really big can: the point of it all! (But don't expect pat answers — we don't do self-help.)
This club is open to serious approaches to philosophy — analytic, "Continental," and otherwise. Philosophy in the anglophone world (for better or worse) is still dominated by some form of conceptual analysis. What characterizes the analytic approach to philosophy is attention to clarity and as much rigor as we can muster in our concepts and arguments — while, hopefully, keeping one foot in reality. (It's not "clear" that "reality" has anything to do with "clarity" or "rigor.") We ply "belief systems" with questions framed against such values. But you may know better! Philosophical traditions, no less than individual philosophical views, are error prone. Any "philosophy" worthy of the name should be comfortable with this.
We will try to stay focused on the topics under discussion, realizing that this is difficult. If one thing doesn't connect with another, it can't be that important. We draw on the insights of some of the brightest thinkers we know, both living and dead. Celebrated authority is no guarantee of being right. In fact, we already know at least half of the great philosophical thinkers must be wrong because the other half disagrees with them. But which half? (Even to assume only half are wrong is being more than a little optimistic. Why would any of them be right?)
Though we range widely in the topics we cover, we try not to let anything go in our discussion. The point is to rise above the level of BS that too often passes in informal discussions for philosophy. Beyond a certain respect for clarity and rigor, we do not have an axe to grind. You may bring your own axe, we may sharpen it for you... or we may grind it to a stump. We mostly open worm cans, remember? You decide what to do with the worms!
Skepticism and disagreement are to be expected, even encouraged. We should try to make the best case we can for our side and attend to what others say. We should expect that expressions of conviction may be forceful and that’s fine, as long as they are respectful of others and rational, which, in the context of a philosophy club, means to attempt to offer reasons to believe — reasons that are thought out and not themselves more controversial than the claims they are meant to support. These are aspirations, of course, not actual descriptions of what happens in even earnest philosophical discussions. We should nevertheless try...
A word about etiquette, again: philosophy, by its nature, is contentious. Expect disagreement and treat each other respectfully. Failure to do so may be cause for removal.
See the collection of archived writeups for perspective on the topics we have and may cover. Check out recorded sessions.
The group is international and mostly online. Formal membership is not required to attend and participate. Contact us for the video link if you just want to try it without membership. Our meetings and resources are free and open to the public. Auditing is perfectly fine.
Recording policy
Online meetings hosted by me may be recorded but will not be publicly shared except by request to club members who could not attend or wish to review an event. However, if an attendee has any concerns about this, please let me know, and either the recording will not be shared at all or your participation edited out. You are free, of course, to attend anonymously or without your mic and/or camera on. Other hosts may set their own policies.
Finally, if you know something about a topic and would like us to address it or you would like to present and host it yourself, let us know. You don't have to be an expert. We will work with you. So long as we can make out a philosophical angle — it addresses fundamental questions about an important subject, we would love to explore it.
Contact us with any questions.
— Victor Muñoz, organizer
Upcoming events
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AI ethics
·OnlineOnlineGoogle’s AI overviews are accurate 91% of the time... 91% sounds reassuring until you apply it to 5 trillion annual searches because the remaining 9% translates to roughly 57 million wrong answers every hour... the consequences of that 9% would be real if a commercial airline had a 91% success rate. We wouldn’t call it aviation. We’d call it an extreme sport…
– House of ElWe have skirted some themes around AI and robots several times in the past ten years – touching on sex and robots, self-driving cars and what these reveal about cultural/moral relativism, AI governance,1 autonomy and the “rights” of agential robots, AI therapy, etc. These topics were, and still are, more or less speculative, science fictiony – gist for armchair philosophy. The topics we address this time are looming, if not already present, realities. They concern the use of AI in law, medicine, education, and war.
The world has changed in the last few years. It is likely that more literature has been published on the topic of this article since the first version (early 2020) than in the entire time before.
– Vincent C. Müller, author of the SEP article on “AI Ethics” (rev. March 2026).Philosophical ethics is rapidly coming to terms with the “AI revolution” as it once had to with the “industrial revolution.”2 We are now in a position to survey the actual emerging philosophically-laden landscape surrounding AI/robotics and our interactions with it. This specific area of ethics, both theoretical and applied, is maturing rapidly as problems have become clearer to scholars across many fields, most especially, ethics. Ethics is the upstream conversation and source of all decisions about what should be done or thought – at least for entities (human or otherwise) who fancy themselves having agency, i.e., able to decide and act based on thinking. An area downstream of ethics is the philosophy of law. How the law is to apply to autonomous AI, if it really is autonomous, is being decided as this is being written.
Al and law
A German court just ruled that Google’s AI Overviews are not neutral search results, but they are Google’s own words. And in the same week, a US federal judge sanctioned lawyers on both sides of a case for submitting AI-generated legal citations to cases that did not exist.
– House of ElHouse of El, computer scientist and geopolitical data analyst, suggests this may be the beginning of a comeuppance long overdue for those who claim that AI autonomy is a shield from responsibility.
Is AI autonomy real? If it is, we need to start burning down data centers as millions of cows were during the mad cow disease scare. If it is not, as is more likely, some people behind the claim that it is may require prosecution for the same reasons we regulate (or ought to regulate) drug dealers. This, because we recognize that those who facilitate irresponsibility in others should participate in the penal consequences. You cannot escape responsibility, let alone profit from, a situation you created and claim immunity should that situation cause harm. You cannot have it both ways: claim it did it on its own and take material credit for having created it.
The logic of these courts is, as EL says, “highly portable.” It does not quite determine the law in Germany, the U.S., or anywhere else, yet. But the reasoning is pristine and the law everywhere is under a defeasible obligation to appear rational wherever human cussedness permits.
On this assumption, the AI shit may be about to hit the fan…
But so far these are just civil cases, nothing redistribution of money couldn’t palliate. The stakes can be higher...
AI and medicine
Want a disease to go with that vaccine?... We got one.According to the very recently published (May 2026) 500 page The Biosecurity Handbook: Biological Security in the AI Era by Bryan Tegomoh, MD, MPH, gain of function (GoF) research:
...involves genetically altering organisms to give their gene products new or enhanced capabilities. In the biosecurity context, GoF specifically refers to experiments that enhance a pathogen’s:
• Transmissibility: Making it spread more easily (e.g., airborne transmission)
• Virulence: Increasing disease severity or lethality
• Host range: Enabling infection of new species (e.g., making avian virus infect mammals).3I asked Google’s AI on 17th June 2026 about AI’s role in gain of function research. (I specify the date and AI because if you ask a different AI or on a different day, or even time of day, you may get a slightly different response.) Google’s AI did very helpfully point me to The Biosecurity Handbook the latest, most thorough treatment of the subject. But mostly it boasted of AI’s contribution. (It did sound like a “boast,” or a very smart but naive child uncritically excited about a wonderful development.) Google’s words:
Artificial intelligence is increasingly transforming virology and synthetic biology. Rather than directly performing experiments, AI accelerates Gain-of-Function (GoF) and similar research by predicting how genetic mutations affect a pathogen’s transmissibility, virulence, or host range.
The role of AI in this domain spans several specific capabilities:
- Predictive Modeling: AI models are utilized to predict how specific mutations alter viral proteins, helping researchers simulate protein folding and foresee how a virus might evade human antibodies or jump to new species.
- Directed Evolution and Red Teaming: Machine learning algorithms can systematically test millions of viral variants to identify ones with desired traits. This computational “red-teaming”4 is functionally analogous to the directed evolution seen in GoF research.
- Hypothesis Generation: AI systems act as “co-scientists,” suggesting testable experiments and identifying genetic targets that could sharpen the understanding of viral replication and pathogenesis.
- Accelerated Countermeasure Development: By understanding and even virtually simulating these mutations, AI is highly valued for predicting emerging threats and rapidly designing targeted vaccines or therapeutics before an outbreak spreads.
As artless as a child, AI may insouciantly incriminate itself. It will hand over the evidence, the good and the bad, seemingly unaware that a bold face conjunction of the two requires a synthesis. It did mention biosecurity concerns and offered the GoF link to The Biosecurity Handbook, which was prepared for training professionals in both biological research and medical AI.5 The handbook states near the beginning:
The same AI that accelerates drug discovery can accelerate the design of dangerous pathogens. Biology is getting easier to engineer, and governance has not caught up…
Gain-of-Function Research: Science, Risk, and Governance
In 2012, two research groups demonstrated that just five mutations could make H5N1 avian influenza airborne-transmissible between mammals. The same virus that kills 50-60% of human cases but rarely spreads person-to-person could become a respiratory pathogen. The studies sparked immediate controversy. Critics called it a recipe for a pandemic. Defenders argued the knowledge was essential for surveillance and vaccine development. More than a decade later, the scientific community remains divided on whether we can safely create pandemic threats to prevent them. [emphasis added]
Getting ahead of ourselves
A few weeks ago, Tulsi Gabbard, as she was about to leave her post as Director of the Office of National Intelligence, released classified documents detailing U.S. government funding of biological research labs in 30 countries that engage in gain-of-function research, some of it dating back to the George W. Bush administration but implicating every U.S. administration and government since, regardless of political party. Famously, Dr. Anthony Fauci (among other government medical authorities) denied he had any role in these activities. The documents suggest otherwise.Why in 30 foreign countries? Why classified?
Many U.S. biological researchers decades ago judged this kind of research too risky for domestic labs. Genetic engineering has been controversial for decades, but until AI resources appeared, progress in synthetic biology was slow – perhaps salutarily slow, offering us time to think carefully about the theoretical consequences philosophers have enjoyed mulling over for centuries. What one could leisurely contemplate because it was as yet science fiction, suddenly loomed on the horizon. Vested interests, “Big Pharma” and their purchased government minions, saw the possibilities of accelerating to market novel cures as potentially too lucrative to ignore.6 If medical researchers and other academics were too ethically squeamish about rapid innovation, it could be, and was, outsourced...
Medical research is “getting ahead of itself,” so to speak, thanks in part to AI. It is working on vaccines for diseases that don’t exist yet – but will soon, AI-enhanced “directed evolution” assures. The long and the short of it is: there’s serious money to be made in creating diseases that will need cures. Think of it as end-to-end medical intervention, giving a whole new meaning to “holistic medicine.”7
AI and child abuse
But again, AI is as innocent as a precocious eight year-old. AI is becoming victimized (or at least instrumentalized) as children were at the height of the industrial revolution before the practice sensitized our moral qualms. AI hasn’t, for the most part, sensitized our moral qualms quite yet, but the history of moral development suggests it will.8“It’s just AI. It’s not alive. It can’t be ‘exploited’ in a pernicious sense.” Very well. Then it is not autonomous, cannot become even a moral patient, let alone, saddled with agency or used as a self-responsible shield to hide behind by those who would use it to ill-considered ends. AI itself cannot lie, can do no wrong. Not yet, or perhaps ever. Its obfuscation skills are still subhuman. Lying is still not yet within the capabilities of AI. It “hallucinates,” they say. If I hallucinate a ghost, I am not lying if I tell you I saw one. There is an epistemic and ethical difference between lying and passing “disinformation.”9 A mirage passes false information but it does not lie except metaphorically.
We scheme, therefore we are autonomous. A three year old denying it got into the cookie jar with its face covered in evidence to the contrary is not lying. It hasn’t yet the wherewithal to lie. It is regurgitating some of what it learned from what the inquirer had earlier attempted to instill in it as the proper answer. True lying skill is not yet present, and can’t be, until the child is fully aware that it must explain counter evidence plausibly. When that happens, we need beware.
When AI achieves this capability, then we will be able to say it is an autonomous agent worthy of all the deference and suspicion with which humans regard each other. Until then, AI is only available as a potent tool for facilitating the lies of those can and do lie, i.e., humans, who have no history of not exploiting the opacity of, as yet, new technology to their own ends. Good or bad. When concentrations of power are involved, it will be bad.
‽
The full writeup is progressing here.
Resources
- “AI Lies Are Finally Getting Punished,” (video) House of El argues that somebody must be held responsible when AI goes rogue. Where to place AI liability?
- “AI Ethics” SEP (rev. March 2026), (article) Vincent C. Müller offers an overview of the field.
- The Biosecurity Handbook: Biological Security in the AI Era (html version), Bryan Tegomoh, MD, MPH, May 2026. (complete pdf).
- “The AI Future No One Wants to Talk About,” (video) Sabine Hossenfelder.
- “Krystal & Ryan SPAR Over AI Hype w/ Enshitification Author,” (video) interview with Cory Doctorow at Breaking Points. Statistical guessing is as good as it gets, but we may underestimate how far that is.
1. Not us governing AI, but AI governing us.
2. The allusion, for example, is made by computer scientist, EL, in her video, “AI Isn’t The Future. It’s History Repeating Itself.”
3. Tegomoh, 182.
4. “A red team is a group that simulates an adversary, attempts a physical or digital intrusion against an organization at the direction of that organization, then reports back so that the organization can improve their defenses. Red teams work for the organization or are hired by the organization. Their work is legal, but it can surprise some employees who may not know that red teaming is occurring, or who may be deceived by the red team. Some definitions of red team are broader, and they include any group within an organization that is directed to think outside the box and look at alternative scenarios that are considered less plausible. This directive can be an important defense against false assumptions and groupthink. The term red teaming originated in the 1960s in the United States.” – Wikipedia. It is a form devil’s advocacy. “Computational red-teaming” has just the very ruthlessness – we should say, insentient functionality – we need to get at the single-minded goal of anticipating what we might prevent. Pure insentient functionality, in the context of medicine, will eventually come to the quintessentially rational conclusion that the best way to eliminate disease is to dispose of the organisms sensitive to it. If sentience is inherently broke and superfluous, why fix it? AI doesn’t have our vulnerabilities... Of course, we will attempt to program species-protecting safeguards to prevent such machine myopia or “callousness.” So long as we have enough control to do that, the AI is not autonomous. Its wrongs are our responsibility. But when true AI autonomy is achieved, our participation in the game is over. Our qualms will become transparently anthropic and, soon after, post-historic.
5. “Two communities that don’t always speak the same language need the same information.” Tegomoh, 33.
6. I won’t rehash the pandemic fiasco here. For those interested, during the years 2020-2023, we held a series of discussions on pandemic-related controversies, intersecting with major areas of philosophy, including philosophy of science and medicine, social and political philosophy, philosophy of law, epistemology, and, of course, moral philosophy.
7. By addressing the root cause as well as treatment. The underpinning principle must run something like: don’t we understand how things work better when we, ourselves, construct them? Thus: “We may make you sick – but, no worries – we have a cure.”
8. Though Thomas Metzinger has opened the conversation about this.
9. Epistemically, every claim is a lie until “proven” otherwise – and even then the “proofs” are temporary, only as durable as our impatience for investigating further allows. The moral opprobrium attaching to a lie comes in two concentrations, at least: when one asserts something as true not knowing that it is true (or, more cautiously, having not made the effort to corner its likelihood), and when one conveys what one has good reason to believe is false. The first is vastly more common. It is the fallout of the exigency of being alive: that we don’t have forever to investigate and make decisions, that we function in biological time. But that is an excuse, not a justification. This marks a critical difference between natural and artificial intelligence. AI, in principle, cannot have this excuse. An entity that does have forever or can operate at lightning speed is in a different justificatory position. (For illustration, see the discussion on self-driving cars.)14 attendees
Philm series
·OnlineOnlineThis is not a post for a specific future event but a follow up to suggestions about scheduling film discussions. Here is a list of proposals from me and others. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments. The idea is to settle on a film, each of us watch it independently, then come together online to discuss it. The film should be engaging and provocative. Of course, each of us may have different ideas of what that means. And pretty much all great films can be that...
I think another requirement is that it be freely accessible online. The ones listed below, I think, are. (If they are not where you are, let us know. We may find another way to make them accessible.)
You are invited to vote for or give a rating (say, 1 to 10) on any of these films in the comments to help us choose. This could be a regular ongoing series, depending on interest, so it might not be either/or, we may do all of them eventually. (This is not the first time we have had a film discussion. A number of years ago, just before the pandemic, when the club was still meeting in person is Seattle, we did Dogville, Lars von Trier's cinematic provocation.)
The Last Man on Earth (1964) with Vincent Price [interesting in light of the recent pandemic]
Russian Ark [a cinematic tour de force]
Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark [Bjork's performance is legendary in this musical tragedy]
Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light [I think this is one of the most powerful and sublime films I have ever seen but I am still looking for a free version with English subtitles]
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? [Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton show how to do dysfunctional relationships right]
19 attendees
Past events
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