Originally from Germany, philosophy professor Thomas Hofweber got into philosophy by accident. He intended to study chemistry and math but took some philosophy classes on a whim when he began at the University of Munich.
“Once I started, I loved it — and I got totally stuck,” Hofweber says. A faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences’ philosophy department for two decades, he specializes in metaphysics and the philosophy of language and mathematics.
Recently, much of Hofweber’s research and teaching has been focused on artificial intelligence, a topic he noticed was being discussed in departments all across Carolina’s campus. To encourage interdepartmental collaboration to better understand the topic, the AI Project was launched in spring 2023, with Hofweber as director.
“It’s supposed to be a research-focused project,” Hofweber says. “I thought it would be really good for people to learn from each other, collaborate a little bit more and talk to each other across these disciplines.”
Informally, the AI project is a group that meets twice a month to discuss recent research in artificial intelligence. More formally it is a series of discussion and reading groups, research presentations, and lectures that enable cross-departmental understanding.
As director, Hofweber orchestrates a series of virtual events each semester that focus on a theme, like language models or explainability, enabling participants to approach AI from multiple angles and share insights.
“If you get people together, you can look at the same thing from different perspectives and then exchange ideas and talk about it — and that can be very helpful,” Hofweber says.
Another AI Project member is Peter Hase, a doctoral student in the UNC College of Arts and Sciences’ computer science department. Under the guidance of professor Mohit Bansal, Hase researches how machine learning models make decisions and develops models that enable computers to understand and generate human language that is clear and relevant.
Hase appreciates the different viewpoints he’s exposed to through the AI Project. “It’s a good learning experience. Hearing other people’s perspectives has provided new angles for thinking about problems.”
Unique interconnectedness
According to Hofweber, we are just at the tip of the iceberg with the technology’s advancement. Linguistics, computer science and philosophy have a unique interconnectedness around the topic.
Artificial Intelligence is leading humanity to more efficient, productive industries. It’s creating opportunities for health care advancement, personalized education, accelerated research, and optimal cities and infrastructure.
But it is crucial to address potential challenges such as ethical considerations, job displacement, and bias, Hofweber says. Hofweber’s fascination with AI stems from its moral implications and the pressing concerns in decision-making algorithms.
These computational processes use predefined rules and patterns to analyze data and make choices or predictions. But they also have the potential to make errors and discriminate and can reflect existing biases in the data used for their training.
“There’s so much going on. It’s amazing,” Hofweber says. “But it’s also very hard to keep up because there’s always some new development and so many people working in this area that it’s hard to stay on top of what’s really happening.”
Understanding, controlling, and implementing safety measures within AI systems is crucial, Hofweber says. He is optimistic that his research, combined with the collaborative efforts of the AI Project, will contribute to a deeper understanding of these machines, benefiting society.
“We might have a truly alien form of intelligence that can be studied and understood and that can help us understand what is significant about being human,” he says.
Editor’s note: Since the story’s original publication, Peter Hase received his doctoral degree in computer science from Carolina in 2024.
Read more about Thomas Hofweber’s questioning of AI.
