Kadish Workshop in Law, Philosophy, and Political Theory: Alison Gopnik, University of California, Berkeley

Alison Gopnik is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Affiliate Professor of Philosophy and member of the Berkeley AI Research Group, all at UC Berkeley. She is a leader in the study of cognitive science and of children’s learning and development and was one of the founders of the field of “theory of mind”, an originator of the “theory theory” of cognitive development, and the first to apply Bayesian probabilistic models to children’s learning. She received the Association for Psychological Science Life-time Acheivement Award, and the Rumelhart Prize for Theoretical Foundations of Cognitive Science, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Cognitive Science Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Guggenheim Fellow. 

Paper Title and Abstract:

Transmission Versus Truth, Imitation Versus Innovation: What Children Can Do That Large Language and Language-and-Vision Models Cannot (Yet)

Much discussion about large language models and language-and-vision models has focused on whether these models are intelligent agents. We present an alternative perspective. We argue that these artificial intelligence models are cultural technologies that enhance cultural transmission in the modern world, and are efficient imitation engines. We explore what AI models can tell us about imitation and innovation by evaluating their capacity to design new tools and discover novel causal structures, and contrast their responses with those of human children. Our work serves as a first step in determining which particular representations and competences, as well as which kinds of knowledge or skill, can be derived from particular learning techniques and data. Critically, our findings suggest that machines may need more than large scale language and images to achieve what a child can do. 

About the Workshop:

A workshop for presenting and discussing work in progress in moral, political, and legal theory. The central aim is to provide an opportunity for students to engage with philosophers, political theorists, and legal scholars working on normative questions. Another aim is to bring together people from different disciplines who have strong normative interests or who speak to issues of potential interest to philosophers and political theorists.

The theme for the Spring 2024 workshop is “Intelligence: Human, Animal, Artificial,” and we will host scholars working in Philosophy, Biology, Psychology, Law, and Engineering. Our underlying concern will be the normative implications of different ideas of what intelligence is and can do.

This semester the workshop is co-taught by Christopher Kutz and Josh Cohen.