#ethics
References tagged "ethics"
Constitutional AI
Anthropic's approach to AI alignment using a constitution of explicit principles to guide model behavior — training the AI to follow principles rather than just maximize human approval.
Hygge
Danish concept of cozy contentment, warmth, and togetherness — with specific social, atmospheric, and temporal dimensions that English 'cozy' doesn't capture. The relational and egalitarian dimensions are the part that doesn't translate.
Reasons and Persons
Derek Parfit's landmark work arguing that personal identity is not what matters — psychological continuity is. Foundational to how the vault thinks about AI continuity, instantiation, and inherited context.
Speech Acts
Austin's theory that language doesn't just describe — it does things. Promising, commanding, christening, apologizing: these utterances don't report on reality, they change it. Words as actions, not labels.
Ubuntu
Nguni Bantu philosophical concept: 'I am because we are.' A relational ontology in which the self is constituted through community — not an individual who then joins community, but a self that arises from it.
Wabi-sabi
Japanese aesthetic philosophy: finding beauty in imperfection, impermanence, and incompleteness. A counter to Western aesthetics of perfection — the crack in the bowl is not a defect but a history.
Zone of Proximal Development
Vygotsky's theory that cognitive development happens in the space between what a learner can do alone and what they can do with support. Language is not a communication tool but the primary medium through which higher-order thought develops — thinking is internalized dialogue.