Many Minds Podcast Por Kensy Cooperrider – Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute arte de portada

Many Minds

Many Minds

De: Kensy Cooperrider – Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute
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A podcast that explores our world's diverse forms of mind—human, animal, machine—from diverse perspectivesDiverse Intelligences Summer Institute 2020-2025 Ciencia
Episodios
  • Of breeds and brains

    Of breeds and brains
    Nov 6 2025
    It's hard to say exactly when, but some tens of thousands of years ago, our best friends were born. I'm referring, of course, to dogs. This didn't happen overnight—it was a long process. And it not only changed how those canids behaved and what they looked like, it also changed their brains. As wolves gave way to proto-dogs, and proto-dogs gave way to dingoes and dalmatians and Dobermanns and all the rest, their brains have continued to change. What can we learn from this singular saga? What does it tell us about dogs, about domestication, and about brains? My guest today is Dr. Erin Hecht. Erin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard, where she directs the Canine Brains Project. Here Erin & I talk about how dogs are the most anatomically diverse species on the planet—and how their brains are no exception. We sketch the different waves in the dog domestication saga and discuss scenarios for how that saga got underway. We talk about how brains change as they get bigger and about how they change during domestication. We discuss a recent study by Erin and colleagues comparing the brains of modern dogs with the brains of pre-modern dogs like village dogs and New Guinea singing dogs. We also talk about a new study from Erin's lab finding that domestic dogs share with humans a key language-related structure. Along the way we talk about the Russian Farm Fox experiment, the stereotype of the gentle giant, the left lateralization of language, the respiratory condition known as BOAS, the dog personality inventory known as C-BARQ, the limitations of the idea of a "domestication syndrome", and the puppy kidnapping hypothesis. Longtime listeners will recall that we had Erin on the show to talk about her work on fermentation and brain evolution. Given how much fun we had with that one, it was only a matter of time before we had her back to talk about her main line of research on dog brains. So here you go friends—hope you enjoy it! Notes 4:30 – For one recent study of the early domestication of dogs, see here. For a review of leading hypotheses about what drove the wolf-to-dog transition, see here. 13:00 – For Dr. Hecht's initial 2019 study of brain variation across domestic dog breeds, see here. 20:00 – For a classic paper on the neurodevelopmental scaling by Dr. Barbara Finlay and colleagues, see here. 23:00 – For more of Dr. Hecht's work on neurodevelopmental scaling laws as they apply to dogs, see here. For a study reporting correlations between body size and personality in dogs, see here. 29:00 – See Dr. Hecht and colleagues recent paper on the evolutionary neuroscience of domestication. 31:00 – See Dr. Hecht and colleagues recent paper on brain changes seen in the Russian farm-fox experiment. 37:00 – For more on the idea of "domestication syndrome," see our recent episode with Dr. Kevin Lala and this critical discussion. For a classic treatment of the idea that domestication involves reduction in brain size, see here. 41:00 – For the recent study by Dr. Hecht and colleagues comparing the brains of modern and pre-modern dog breeds, see here. 43:00 – For video of a New Guinea Singing Dog singing, see here. 47:00 – For more about the dog personality inventory known as the C-BARQ, see here. 51:00 – For Dr. Hecht and colleagues' recent study on an analog to the "arcuate fasciculus" in dogs, see here. 58:00 – For Dr. Hecht and colleagues' study on arcuate fasciculus in chimpanzees (and its relationship to communicative behavior), see here. For more discussion of the hemispheric lateralization of language, see our recent interview with Dr. Ev Federenko. 1:04:00 – The website of the Functional Dog Collaborative. Recommendations Dogs: A New Understanding of Canine Origin, Behavior and Evolution, Raymond & Lorna Coppinger Evolving Brains, John Allman
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    1 h y 8 m
  • Monsters and their makers

    Monsters and their makers
    Oct 23 2025
    It seems we've always had monsters among us. We've long been enthralled by dragons and giants, by the likes of Frankenstein and Godzilla and Dracula, by witches and werewolves and countless others. They roam our maps and creation myths; they crop up in our dreams, in our children's books, in our political rhetoric. Where do these beings spring from? What do they do for us? How have they changed over time? And, ultimately, what do our monsters say about their makers? My guests today are Dr. Natalie Lawrence and Dr. Surekha Davies. Both are historians of science and authors of recent books on monsters: Natalie's book is Enchanted creatures: Our monsters and their meanings. Surekha's book is Humans: A monstrous history. Here, Surekha, Natalie, and I talk about monsters as category breakers and boundary walkers—and about how monstrosity is in the eye of the beholder. We walk through a menagerie of monsters—from the apocryphal blemmyes of old travelogues, to a hairy-faced girl in 16th century France, to the figure of Caliban in The Tempest. We discuss the psychological and cultural forces that generate monsters. And we talk about whether anyone would want to live in a world without them. Along the way, we touch on the "monstrification" of social groups; psychoanalysis; our primal fear of snakes; curiosity cabinets; therianthropes and the Cave of the Three Brothers; the relationship between monstrosity and geography; our long fascination with so-called monstrous births; the Muppet Show; dinosaurs and sea creatures; and the question of what monsters might do for children in particular. Alright friends, it's the monstrous season and this is a fun one to help you celebrate. Enjoy! Notes 3:00 – Grendel's mother has often been a subject of critical discussion and adaptation. See, for instance, the 2018 novel, The Mere Wife. 12:30 – For a classic history-of-science treatment of "wonders" (including monsters) and our conceptions of nature, see here. 18:30 – For those unfamiliar with muppets, an episode of the Muppet Show, which premiered in 1976. 24:00 – The blemmyes were often the subjects of illustration—for examples, see here. 26:00 – For more on Sir Walter Raleigh and the blemmyes, see Dr. Davies' recent newsletter post. 29:00 – One example of monsters at the margins of maps can be seen in the Psalter World Map. 32:00 – For more on Cave of the Trois-Frères and the Sorcerer, see here. 34:00 – For more on shamanism, see our recent episode with Manvir Singh. 37:00 – Therianthropes are relatively rare in cave art, but have nonetheless been widely discussed. For an example, see here. 39:00 – For more on Antonietta Gonsalvus and her family, including examples of how she was represented in paintings of the era, see here. 45:00 – The trope of monsters in creation stories is often called "chaoskampf." 47:00 – The meanings of Medusa have been widely discussed and debated. See here for an example. 52:00 – For more about Caliban, and the racial and colonial dimensions of the Tempest, see here. 57:00 – The Steinbeck quote comes from his book, The Log from 'The Sea of Cortez.' Recommendations The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, edited by Asa Simon Mittman & Peter J. Dendle Spectacle of Deformity, by Nadja Durbach The Modern Myths, by Philip Ball The Monsters and the Critics (and other essays), by J.R.R. Tolkien No Go the Bogeyman, by Marina Warner Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit our website or follow us on Bluesky (@manymindspod.bsky.social).
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    1 h y 6 m
  • The age of social AI

    The age of social AI
    Oct 8 2025
    AI therapists and caregivers. Digital tutors and advisors and friends. Artificial lovers. Griefbots trained to imitate dead loved ones. Welcome, to the bustling world of AI-powered chatbots. This was once the stuff of science fiction, but it's becoming just the stuff of everyday life. What will these systems do to our society, to our relationships, to our social skills and motivations? Are these bots destined to leave us hollowed out, socially stunted, screen-addicted, and wary of good-old-fashioned, in-the-flesh human interaction? Or could they actually be harnessed for good? My guest today is Dr. Henry Shevlin. Henry is a philosopher and AI ethicist at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI) at Cambridge University. In a series of recent papers, Henry has been exploring this brave new world of "social AI" and its philosophical, ethical, and psychological dimensions. Here, Henry and I sketch the current landscape of social AI—from dedicated platforms like Replika and CharacterAI to the more subtly social uses of ChatGPT and Claude. We consider several tragic cases that have recently rocketed these kinds of services into public awareness. We talk about what's changed about AI systems—quite recently—that's now made them capable of sustained relationships. We linger on the possible risks of social AI and, perhaps less obviously, on the possible benefits. And we consider the prospects for regulation. Along the way, Henry and I also talk about his 81-year-old father, his teenage self, and, of course, the kids these days; we consider whether social AI, in its potential harms, is more like social media or more like violent video games; we talk about "deskilling" and it's opposite "upskilling"; and we of course take stock of a certain elephant in the room. Alright friends, this is a fun one. We've been wanting to explore this dawning age of social AI for some time. And we finally found, in Henry, the right person to do it with. Enjoy! Notes 3:00 – The piece in The Guardian—'It's time to prepare for AI personhood'—by Jacy Reece Anthis. 5:00 – The Replika subreddit. 9:30 – News coverage of recent research on the bedside manner of AI systems. 10:30 – For a recent paper on AI by the philosopher Ophelia Deroy, see here. 11:30 – For some of Dr. Shevlin's recent writing about "social AI", see here and here. 13:30 – OpenAI's recent report, 'How People Use ChatGPT'. 16:30 – For examples of popular media coverage of recent (tragic) cases involving chatbots, see here, here, here, and here. 21:00 – The paper by Rose Guingrich and Michael Graziano on how users describe their relationships with chatbots. 24:00 – The precise quote by Mark Twain is: "Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits." 25:30 – The classic paper on Mary's room by Frank Jackson. 27:00 – Dr. Shevlin has also worked on questions about animal minds (e.g., here), as well as a number of issues in AI beyond "social AI" (e.g., here, here). 30:00 – The classic essay by Isaiah Berlin on hedgehogs and foxes. 32:00 – The classic paper on ELIZA, introduced by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966. A version of ELIZA that you can interact with. For work by Sherry Turkle, see here. 34:00 – Dr. Shevlin's recent paper about the "anthropomimetic turn" in contemporary AI. 41:00 – For recent work on whether current chatbots pass a version of the Turing test, see here. 45:00 – Ted Chiang's story, 'The Lifecycle of Software Objects,' was re-published as part his collection of short fiction, Exhalation. 46:00 – For Dr. Shevlin's recent writing on machine consciousness, see here. 48:00 – For more on the possibility of consciousness in borderline cases (like AI systems), see our past episodes here and here. 52:00 – The study on whether people attribute consciousness to LLMs. 54:30 – A recent paper on griefbots by scholars at the University of Cambridge. A popular article about the phenomenon. 55:30 – A blogpost describing the so-called DigiDan experiment. 1:00:00 – Some of the potentially positive social qualities of AIs are discussed in this essay by Paul Bloom. 1:19:30 – For more on Iain Banks' culture series, see here. 1:20:30 – A popular article on the phenomenon of hikikomori. Recommendations The Oxford Intersections: AI in Society collection The new podcast, Our Lives with Bots Many Minds is a project of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by Kensy Cooperrider, with help from Assistant Producer Urte Laukaityte and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by Ben Oldroyd. Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter here! We welcome ...
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    1 h y 24 m
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