Module 3 - Epistemic Opacity in Machine Learning Models
Robert Michels: robert.michels@edu.ulisboa.pt
On this page, you will find the readings and an overview of the topics covered in the sessions of the module.
Session 1: Epistemological preliminaries and models in science.
Readings:
- Read the intro and Section 3 "Epistemology: The Cognitive Functions of Models" (optional reading: the paragraphs introducing different types of models from section 1) of the Stanford Encyclopedia entry "Models in Science" by Frigg & Hartmann: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/models-science/
- Read the "Overview" and "How the Model Works" section of McCown's website about Schelling's Segregation Model: http://nifty.stanford.edu/2014/mccown-schelling-model-segregation/
Session 2: Computer models, simulation, AI models in science; do they pose a special epistemic problem?
Readings:
sem_epist_philsci-ulisboa_2024-02.pdf
Session 3
Readings:
Readings:
- Humphreys, P. (2009). The philosophical novelty of computer simulation methods. Synthese, 169:615–626. - humphreys-2009.pdf
- Wood, C. (2022). Powerful ‘Machine Scientists’ Distill the Laws of Physics From Raw Data. Quanta Magazine.
- Please also think about which of the papers below you would like to read next!
sem_epist_philsci-ulisboa_2024-02.pdf
Session 3
Readings:
- Explaining Machine Learning Decisions (Zerilli (2022)) - discussion of XAI (explainable AI), technical methods to make opaque ML models epistemically accessible to us -
Slides:
Rough summary of the Zirelli paper and our discussion:
Session 4
Readings:
- Who is afraid of black box algorithms? On the epistemological and ethical basis of trust in medical AI (Durán and Jongsma (2021)) - disscussion of epistemic and ethical issues about trust in AI in medicine - duran&jongsma-epistandethtrustinmedicalai-jofmediaclethics.pdf
Additional paper on AI in medicine:
Anexos
- sem_epist_philsci-ulisboa_2024-01.pdf
- duran&jongsma-epistandethtrustinmedicalai-jofmediaclethics.pdf
- Philosophy Compass - 2019 - Buckner - Deep learning A philosophical introduction.pdf
- humphreys-2009.pdf
- Zirelli.pdf
- Duede_Novel_Epistemic_Categories.pdf
- Beisbart_Raez-2021.pdf
- sem_epist_philsci-ulisboa_2024-02.pdf
- sem_epist_philsci-ulisboa_2024-03.pdf
- zerilli-summary.pdf
- duran-jongsma-summary.pdf