Decision Theory in Stockholm (05/2024)

Great fun giving my decision theory talk “Attention and Rational Choice” at the Center for Logic Language and Mind (CCLAM) in Stockholm last Friday. Such an amazing group to try this material out with (it’s been the first time I presented this outside the little cozy nest of our group at home). (also: thanks to Louise Clover, Harish Pedaprolu, and Andrew Lee for their work that leads into this)

Here is the idea (aka abstract)

Formal models of decision making are widely employed in philosophy as well as microeconomics. They are variously described as rational choice theory or decision theory. The standard decision theoretic apparatus has no role for attention in its modelling. It treats rational agents as acting on the basis of preferences (desires) and credences (beliefs or expectations). At the same time, psychology and empirically informed philosophy of mind and action shows that attention plays essential and constructive roles in both belief revision and agency. In this paper, I sketch why attention should be included in decision-theoretic models, how to incorporate attention into them in a way that keeps what makes such models valuable, that is psychologically plausible, and theoretically and formally elegant and tractable.

Agents, I argue, are informationally blind to issues they are not paying any attention to. All of an agent’s information gathering involves attention (at least, it won’t impact the agent’s beliefs without attention). Agents also are decisionally blind to options that don’t occupy their attention.

The options an agent decides between at any time is limited by the issues the agent is paying attention to in making that decision. I will show that informational blindness and decisional blindness are two sides of the same coin. This, I suggest, in part, is what makes attention decision-theoretically and normatively interesting: its role in mind and action is theoretical and practical at the same time.

I show when attention, treated in this way, allows agents to act in ways that are both epistemically and practically better than they could act without attention, and how the view sketched here affects recent discussions on the nature and aim of inquiry.

GoodAttention Midterm Report (04/2024)

I suppose writing a scientific report is not meant to be the most fun part of having an ERC-grant. But it did bring me/us to re-do our website, and share with the world some of the cool things we have been doing. Browse through it.

Technology, Power, and the Attention Economy (04/2024)

I’m looking forward to talking on Friday, April 26th, to a faculty meeting about Artificial Intelligence at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences. My talk is on how we should shift from a focus on ethics of technology to a focus on our techno-societal structures. In the case of AI the biggest issue, in my view concerns the power of those who control the relevant systems. I’ve been very influenced by Emily Bender’s fantastic work in this context.

The most important problem online (04/2024)

So I guess I’m leaning into the click-bait with this title. Anyway, a new Op-Ed in Klassekampen (08.04.2024) on Det viktigste problemet ved oppmerksomhet på nett.

Ethics, Attention, and the Digital World (01/2024)

Our digital devices threaten our attention daily. What problems does this distraction pose to individuals? To society?  Katharine Browne, Tone Hagerup, Line Horgen Thorstad and I have have developed www.attentionethics.com to learn to navigate these issues. As far as I know it is the textbook style teaching resource on the ethics of attention, social media, and digital distraction. We have lessons on “Attention and Ethics”, “The Attention Economy”, “Algorithms, Attention, and Democracy” and “Agenda-setting, Justice and Attention”.

Attention workers of the world unite (12/2023)

We just published an Op-Ed in Klassekampen (with Katharine Browne and Line Horgen Thorstad). The piece is in Norwegian.

Talk at Bergen workshop on AI and the Future of Protest Politics' (12/2023)

I’m presenting the latest version of Katharine Browne and my paper on what is wrong with commodifying attention. Excited to go to Bergen, to meet some old friends, give this paper one more time and get to know about what others are doing in this space.

Paper on Rationality and Salience (10/2023)

I finished a new version of my paper on why it’s rational to pay attention to something just because it consciously captures your attention. Let’s see how this fares under review….