John Searle Archives - Public Seminar

Great Engineers, Terrible Philosophers

A conversation on the rapid evolution of AI technology, the nature of intelligence, and the importance of the European project

June 9, 2025 • by Luciano Floridi, Giannis Perperidis and Alexandros Schismenos

Sam Altman has claimed that by the end of this year, OpenAI will be capable of “truly astonishing cognitive tasks.” But what exactly does “cognition” mean in the context of artificial intelligence? As the sophistication of such technologies, our dependence on them, and the rhetoric used to sell them escalates, ...

From Alternative Truth to True Alternatives

Kellyanne Conway, the advisor to President Donald Trump, must be credited for having coined a new philosophical concept: alternative facts. When confronted with the episode in which White House press Secretary Sean Spicer had grossly misstated the figures concerning the people present at the presidential inauguration, Conway disputed that Spicer ...