[SydPhil] HPS Research Seminar, Monday 3 November 2025 at 5.30pm

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School of History and Philosophy of Science

RESEARCH SEMINAR

[The University of Sydney]

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GenAI and mental health
Elena Walsh (University of Wollongong)

Dates: Monday, 3/11/2025
Start Time: 5:30pm
Venue: Michael Spence Building, F23 Ground Floor, Auditorium (1) 104
How to register: Free, no registration required

Website: https://hps-events.sydney.edu.au/<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/b8GqC3QNPBi9G6q3mFOH6uQJgB5?domain=t.e2ma.net>



Abstract: Quantitative measurement in the human sciences remains both widespread and controversial. Are depression scales, intelligence tests, etc. valid measurement instruments? Do they deliver quantitative or merely ordinal information? I discuss two approaches for understanding practices of quantitative measurement of theoretical attributes in the early stages of research. One uses causal notions to characterize dispositional attributes and to understand how they relate to measurement indications. It aims at standard epistemic desiderata in science (discovery, explanation, prediction) and offers good answers to traditional worries about human attributes (namely, are they really quantitative?) and about their measurement instruments (namely, are they valid?). A second approach uses the notion of value (as worked out in Dan Hausman's 2015 Valuing Health) to make sense of quantification practices. This approach does not resemble what scientists think of their measurement practices: it is not designed for the testing of tentative concepts but rather to standardize political decision making. Yet, I argue, this approach is the most plausible candidate for making sense of some human sciences’ measurement practices as quantifying anything. Such is the case for measurements that (i) combine distinct dimensions of the phenomena at stake and (ii) for which we don’t observe serious efforts aiming at embedding such measurements in predictive and explanatory networks. I illustrate with two examples: depression severity (HAMD) and the Human Development Index (HDI).


Bio: Elena Walsh works across the Philosophy of Psychology, the Philosophy of Science, and the Philosophy of AI. She has expertise in the study of emotion and emotional dispositions, drawing especially on dynamical systems theory, life history theory, and predictive processing models of mind. Her current research places contemporary research on emotion in dialogue with the rapidly-developing approaches to machine learning coming to define 21st-century notions of both artificial and biological intelligence. She is interested in how norms and values may be embedded into decision-making processes undertaken by AI and data-driven technologies, and how human interaction with new technologies can impact our characters and regulate our attentional and emotional capacities.

She has expertise in related areas including Moral Psychology (especially the relationship between emotion and reason) and Epistemology. She has a longstanding interest in Buddhist, Asian and comparative approaches to philosophy. Her other philosophical interests include the role of emotion and motivation in intelligent systems, and the opacity and ethical governance of emerging AI. Elena completed her PhD in 2019 at the University of Sydney. Her dissertation adopted a broadly naturalistic approach to provide a theoretical framework that explains how emotional dispositions are constructed in individuals over time.

She has previously worked for the Department of Premier and Cabinet as a policy advisor, and as a researcher at the Practical Justice Initiative at the University of New South Wales.



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