Some SydPhilers may be interested in this welcome news from Blackheath! ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Blackheath Philosophy Forum <[email protected]> Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2026 at 3:48 pm Subject: Blackheath Philosophy Forum is back!
Comments, queries, feedback? Just reply to this email. Comments, queries, feedback? Just reply to this email. *Blackheath Philosophy Forum* Hello subscribers, After a Covid-induced six-year sojourn, Blackheath Philosophy Forum is back! There will be an initial program of four talks this year, put together by our small team of academic philosophers: Huw Price <https://us.list-manage.com/jeT6cO6DlRg?e=b51f26e285&c2id=abfad12032102fd7ef83c546f4bb4d3b>, Gemma Smart <https://us.list-manage.com/AZrjDJ3557V?e=b51f26e285&c2id=abfad12032102fd7ef83c546f4bb4d3b> and James Norton <https://us.list-manage.com/W1ZnAKJ3aaL?e=b51f26e285&c2id=abfad12032102fd7ef83c546f4bb4d3b> . Details of all but the first talk are still being finalized, but the dates are: *20 September, 18 October, 15 November, 22 November*. There will be some differences from how we used to run these forums. The main changes: - *Time: *The forums will all be held on Sunday afternoons, starting at 4:30 pm and finishing between 6 and 6:30. - *Venue:* The forums will be held in the Charles Darwin Room at at the Gardners Inn Hotel, 255 Great Western Highway, Blackheath. The management has generously offered this very nice space to us free of charge. - *No afternoon tea*, but drinks, including coffee, are available from the bar. - *Admission charge: *The highly concessional rate of *$0.00 *for all comers for the early talks (this will need to be revisited at some point). - *Dinner*: The discussions can continue over dinner at the pub after the forums. If you want to join us, please indicate on arrival arrive so we can give the pub numbers. - *Register to attend*: Given the limited seating at the venue (60 at a stretch) it is essential that anyone planning to attend register with Humanitix <https://us.list-manage.com/T79xJK6Yk_O?e=b51f26e285&c2id=abfad12032102fd7ef83c546f4bb4d3b> - *Inquiries: *Reply to this email. *Inaugural topic: Trust Me, I'm an Algorithm* 4:30 pm, Sunday 20 September 2026 *Ask ten people whether they trust AI and you'll get ten answers — partly because they're not all talking about the same thing. Trusting your car to start is not the same as trusting a friend to keep a secret, yet we reach for the same word for both. So when people say AI needs to earn our trust, which kind do they have in mind? This talk untangles the surprising number of things we mean by trust, and asks which of them we owe to AI — and which AI could ever really earn. The distinction carries a moral weight: some of what we call trust asks for goodwill and genuine care, things a machine simply cannot offer, and pretending otherwise means resting real moral decisions on a comforting fiction. To ground all this, I'll share new data on how people actually think about trusting AI.* *Speaker: Sam Baron* Sam Baron <https://us.list-manage.com/17BK6A__ELS?e=b51f26e285&c2id=abfad12032102fd7ef83c546f4bb4d3b> is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne and works across the philosophy of science, metaphysics, philosophy of mathematics, and philosophy of AI. His research ranges from the metaphysics of time, spacetime emergence, and quantum gravity to mathematical explanation and the foundations of explainable and trustworthy artificial intelligence. He is the author of *Out of Time: A Philosophical Study of Timelessness* (Oxford, 2022) alongside more than eighty journal articles in venues such as *Mind*, the *Journal of Philosophy*, *Philosophy and Phenomenological Research*, and the *British Journal for the Philosophy of Science*. He currently holds an ARC Discovery Project and an ARC Future Fellowship. Beyond his research, he is a former producer and presenter for ABC Radio National's *Philosopher's Zone*, and a widely read contributor to *The Conversation*. I hope you can make it to some of the discussions. Peter Baldwin You received this email because you opted in to our mailing list *Our mailing address is:* Blackheath Philosophy Forum P.O. Box 212 Blackheath, NSW 2785 Australia Add us to your address book <https://blackheathphilosophy.us2.list-manage.com/vcard?u=100ba0a677e6b0d22363954fb&id=c6de0fbee9> [image: Email Marketing Powered by Mailchimp] <https://login.mailchimp.com/signup/email-referral/?aid=100ba0a677e6b0d22363954fb> unsubscribe from this list <https://blackheathphilosophy.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=100ba0a677e6b0d22363954fb&id=c6de0fbee9&t=b&e=b51f26e285&c=ee113c76f0> | update subscription preferences <https://blackheathphilosophy.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=100ba0a677e6b0d22363954fb&id=c6de0fbee9&e=b51f26e285&c=ee113c76f0> | view email in browser <https://mailchi.mp/cea0bdc399a8/this-saturdays-talk-3197794?e=b51f26e285> --------- SydPhil mailing list To unsubscribe, change your membership options, find answers to common problems, or visit our online archives, please go to the list information page: https://mailman.sydney.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/sydphil
