Brian D. Earp, PhD

Call for abstracts! We're hosting 🚨 Neuroethics Asia 2026 - Centre for Biomedical Ethics – National University of Singapore - medicine.nus.edu.sg/cbme/neuroet...

👀 #PHEthx #PublicHealthEthics

(PDF) When ELIZA meets therapists: A Turing test for the heart and mind PDF | “Can machines be therapists?” is a question receiving increased attention given the relative ease of working with generative artificial... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on…

When ELIZA meets therapists: A Turing test for the heart and mind www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Artificial Intelligence is (Only) a Useful Tool to Assist with Peer Review jmepb.bmj.com/content/2/1/...

Circumcision classed as potentially harmful practice in new CPS guidance Controversial plans to class procedure as potential child abuse in latest guidelines for England and Wales dropped

Circumcision classed as potentially harmful practice in new CPS guidance www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

New in JME Practical Bioethics - "Toward an ethics of vigilance in public health" by Jamie Webb jmepb.bmj.com/content/2/1/...

New in @JME_BMJ Practical Bioethics: Duties to protect oneself from loneliness - by Bouke de Vries jmepb.bmj.com/content/2/1/... - Do we have a duty to protect ourselves from loneliness?

Breaking the fourth wall of philanthropy jmepb.bmj.com/content/2/1/...

And now it's ~*officially*~ typset! (Though I have to admit, I think my typsetting is prettier. What's with the double columns?!) doi.org/10.1111/phpr...

UK health official recuses himself from puberty blockers trial after bias claims MHRA says Prof Jacob George will no longer be involved after gender-critical social media posts from last year

UK health official recuses himself from puberty blockers trial after bias claims www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Seven Desiderata for Ethical Frameworks for AI Mental Health Agents Published in The American Journal of Bioethics (Vol. 26, No. 2, 2026)

Seven Desiderata for Ethical Frameworks for AI Mental Health Agents www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Thanks Josh!

This piece by psychologist/philosopher Brian Earp is about the differing attitudes toward AI in psychology vs. philosophy

In psych, one common attitude is; The goal is to get the right answer to fundamental questions in psychology. If AI helps us do that, well then, all the better…

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I had the opportunity to read and provide a blurb/review for the new book from @svennyholm.bsky.social "The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence" @hackettpub.bsky.social

hackettpublishing.com/new-forthcom...

Yes this one hits the mark

The Age of Academic Slop is Upon Us what happens when AI automates "normal science"?

Finally something about #LLM involvement in academic publishing that gets it right. The problem is not #AISlop vs. genuine human generated content. The problem--actually the opportunity AND challenge--is "Automatenwissenschaft." Short essay by @seva.bsky.social
hegemon.substack.com/p/the-age-of...

Well worth a read! This stuck with me:

'Dialogue—whether with a colleague or mentor, or, yes, even an AI—can be a corrective to that kind of tunnel vision'

Absolutely this - and for students without mentors/colleagues available to work through ideas, AI could be a genuine leveller

"Writing is thinking — yes. I grant that. But the inverse isn’t true."

Stochastic Flocks and the Critical Problem of 'Useful' AI Acknowledging that AI systems are advancing does not buy into hype, it sharpens the precision of critical thinking about their impacts, says Eryk Salvaggio.

To acknowledge the ways AI systems are changing does not buy into hype, it sharpens the precision of critical thinking about their impacts. To make sense of what AI does to people, you also need to understand what it does for them, writes Eryk Salvaggio.

Is philosophy too precious for AI? On writing, thinking, and the ego of authorship

New post 🚨 Is philosophy too precious for AI? briandavidearp.substack.com/p/is-philoso... ... on the science-humanities divide in LLM appreciation

lmao no I would never get hoisted like that, I mean it's my own freaking petard

In this new podcast UOI's Dominic Wilkinson is joined by Zainab Nur (Hidden Voices) & @briandavidearp.bsky.social (Nat. Uni. of Singapore) to discuss #FemaleCircumcision - as part of the Antitheses project 'Engaging with disagreement, polarisation and uncertainty'.
Watch: youtu.be/UiQBmaa-Iz4?...

An information poster about studying philosophy at university of Bristol with an image of a skeleton skewering a peasant as illustration

I sometimes worry our advertising material isn’t as welcoming as it might be

"The concept isn't mine." open.substack.com/pub/briandav... Human slop, AI criticism, and schmauthorship - a guest post (sort of) by an LLM (prompted, edited and signed off by @briandavidearp.bsky.social).

What has been happening in China in relation to medical research ethics review since the "CRISPR baby" case in 2018? What reforms have been made, and what changes are still needed? 🚨 Guest editorial: Medical research ethics review in China jmepb.bmj.com/content/2/1/...

Need Over Nearness: Impartial Beneficence Lowers the Threshold for Helping Strangers Over Close Others papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Reliability of LLMs as medical assistants for the general public: a randomized preregistered study - Nature Medicine In a randomized controlled study involving 1,298 participants from a general sample, performance of humans when assisted by a large language model (LLM) was sensibly inferior to that of the LLM alone ...

LLMs good performance on medical exams does not translate to accurate performance in real-world settings (preregistered n~1,300 study). This can't be explained by current standard benchmarks for medical knowledge & simulated patient interactions.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Health Advice From A.I. Chatbots Is Frequently Wrong, Study Shows

Health Advice From AI Chatbots Is Frequently Wrong, Study Shows. In part, the problem has to do with how users are asking their questions. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/w...

Screenshot from article that starts as follow: Meticulous citation is a marker of well-researched, serious scholarship. Citations do a lot more than attributing credit; they situate claims within the context of existing research and enable scrutiny. When authors cite carelessly, for example by referencing famous figures and articles while overlooking original sources, they make two important errors. First, they credit ideas to the wrong person and, second, they reveal a limited understanding of the relevant scholarship. Misattribution disproportionately harms underrepresented voices, whose work has been shown to be consistently more innovative than that of established researchers1. Research led by women tends to be less cited than comparable research led by men. Similarly, research from underrepresented groups, as well as from amateurs and beginners, tends to lead to more breakthroughs and innovation, yet remains less cited than follow-up work from established researchers.

Roxana Radu and I wrote a short letter about the need to uphold the sanctity of citations in academia, and not giving in to AI. The craft and art of attributing and situating knowledge are in danger, and we believe this would first harm under-credited, often erased work.

New preprint 🚨 How Social Relationships Shape Praise and Blame: Strengthening and Extending the Relational Norms Model -- this one has been YEARS in the making... www.researchgate.net/publication/.... With K. McLoughlin, R. Calcott, M. Caraccio, J. Monrad, A. Owen, M. J. Crockett, M. Clark