[SydPhil] Fwd: Blackheath Philosophy Forum is back!

[Huw Price]

Some SydPhilers may be interested in this welcome news from Blackheath!

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Blackheath Philosophy Forum <admin at blackheathphilosophy.org>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2026 at 3:48 pm
Subject: Blackheath Philosophy Forum is back!


Comments, queries, feedback?
Just reply to this email.
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*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://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/twuFCoV1kpf8Bo5k8U1fqqip1npf?domain=us.list-manage.com>,
Gemma Smart
<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/S83aCp81lrtyvlq5yiDh22iG6jFS?domain=us.list-manage.com>
and James Norton
<https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/JPaPCq71mwfRz4n9RSQiKKiE6u4Y?domain=us.list-manage.com>
.

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://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/Z1S3Cr81nyt61N7x6cys66i42d1y?domain=us.list-manage.com>
   - *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://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/K5aDCvl1rKi42Bqv4UotlliQn3vk?domain=us.list-manage.com>
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

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Blackheath, NSW 2785
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