This week I watched the interview with philosopher Ned Hall and found the conversation between him and Professor Goodman absolutely amazing--I am very astonished by philosophy and glad to see in what ways it relates to what we have been discussing in class. What partially shocked me during the interview was first the whole conversation about how non-science things sometimes heavily affect the outcome of scientific theories, but secondly, Hall's explanation of how our current model for science is flawed. He says this is due to science being fundamentally rooted in explanation and that every principle we have learned can be explained via other principles. Where this intrigues me, however, is when Hall states that if we take this back far enough, we arrive at things we cannot explain through other principles or even explain really concretely at all--the fundamental laws of science. I found this extremely interesting because I always have wondered about this---what if our current knowledge today is flawed because of a small misunderstanding within the fundamentals of science? It does not even have to be all of science that is flawed but maybe instead only a small topic within the realm that remains flawed because of inaccuracies. One fundamental misunderstanding can lead to a sort of butterfly effect of flaws and eventually lead to a complete misunderstanding of a topic. Modern scientists work around the fundamentals given to them and continue to advance knowledge in their fields but the question becomes---is this knowledge actually advancing our understanding or instead just useless because of it being built on a flawed foundation? I know it is very bold to doubt all of science but my main question revolves around how mistakes can build up even within "concrete" science and cause modern flaws in thinking. Hall explains that given how the scientific community revolves around explanation, it is strange that they make an exception for the fundamentals and that this route has often led to controversy and misconceptions throughout our history(as seen by early astronomers). One question I may have asked Hall is how do you think this concept plays out in other aspects of our general lives? For example: when a student accepts a concept from a teacher as being true without understanding why, leading them to not understand another fundamental concept down the road because they do not see the connections. Relations like these in our everyday lives can be a fundamental lens from which to view the error in our psychology and can serve as a way to understand the flaw in our logic when it comes to science.

The most surprising aspect of this interview with Professor Goodman is the divide that Shneiderman draws between partner and tool regarding to AI. In response to questions about AI taking over the world, we see that Shneiderman in a sense throws out the concerns by saying that right now AI is more of a tool than anything--something that we have full control over and do not need to worry about taking control of us in the same sense that today's computers are tools even though they are technically infinitely smarter than us. What I do see Shneiderman alluding to, however, is the fact that A.I may eventually actually become a partner with us given its ability to exponentially make our life easier and the coming application it will have to various parts of our lives. Since A.I will eventually become integrated with day-to-day life and become essential to advancing all aspects of life, I can see how this partnership may workout in that it helps us so much that we may view it as an equal(and much more human-like than computers). I found this aspect of the interview a bit confusing but also very enlightening in that the line between tool and partner I never really saw as essential but now can see very clearly, though I still have questions regarding at which point a tool crosses to a partner. Crossing into what potential questions I would ask Shneierman, I would ask just exactly that "What exactly differentiates tool from partner and why is A.I considered a tool right now but not our peers(who many consider partners) who are much less useful than A.I or any computer. Is the aspect of emotion and consciousness really that essential to our understanding of each other and the aspects of our day-to-day life? Although I now see the line between partner and tool very clearly, I still struggle to see what differentiates the two and what that crossover point will be that makes A.I turn from tool to partner.

Original interview: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10LEZUvf4niowYAvtmAwoiz1pK-MEJwFQ/view?usp=share What I found most surprising from this interview was when they mentioned the fact that right now we are not fighting climate change in any "real" way and that these petroleum companies are more putting a nice flower on top of a heap of weeds to make it seem like they are doing something to get their emissions down. They also point out here the monetary reasons for this and the fact that politicians really make these false promises of doing something about climate change but instead do not do anything because of the money that these corporations give them to keep quiet. The reason this stuck out to me is the very recent example with President Biden where he approved the Alaska project set to change the landscape of millions of acres of untouched land in Alaska for the benefit of U.S oil companies. This fact stated by Osprey and Allen is, of course, not too surprising as I believe everyone knows that the oil companies do not really care about the environment and are not taking any serious measures to reduce their emissions(more doing things for their image), but why I was surprised by it was more because I would have thought with all these years of activism at least decent progress would have been made by now either on the oil companies initiative or the presidents demand. This leads me to be ultimately concerned at the state of our planet and as also stated by both interviewees, still little is being done and probably will be done about this fact as oil companies continue to make profits and conversely, politicians too... One question I ultimately had by the end is "What would be your ultimate grand plan if you had one to reduce emissions? is there already a method but nobody wants to pay for it or is it being hidden?" I would have asked this question because as stated above, no effective solution has been executed as of yet to efficiently cut emissions down and as two environmental experts, I am wondering what they know on the subject and how they would tackle this problem we have very little time to solve before it is too late. The second question is more related to whether there is a solution but it has been hidden by the oil companies or politicians because it would ruin their business. I want to know what people are working on right now and what they believe is going to be the big (literal) life saver for our planet.