#85 Punk, Tech & Care: B. Scot Rousse on Being Human in the Age AI and Ambassadors of Possibility (Dreyfus, Flores, Heidegger, Kierkegaard)

Send a love messageB. Scot Rousse (“B”)'s substack, "Without Why," focuses on what it means to be alive in an age of intelligent machines. He is philosopher in residence at Topos Institute and visiting scholar in Philosophy at Berkeley. He also drums in 3 punk bands.To support us, please sign up for the newsletter or Give any amount.Andrea Hiott has a conversation with philosopher B. Scot Rousse (“B”). B is an Oakland-based, Berkeley-affiliated Heidegger and phenomenology scholar focused on AI’s effects on our capacities to care. He is also a Topos Institute affiliate and a punk drummer. Andrea and B discuss Heidegger’s care as living in “meaningful differences,” embodied affordances, moods, and existential orientation. They explore how AI risks compulsive optimization and an overly narrow picture of the role of language in human life. B argues that technologies design ways of being human, urges users and designers to ask “for the sake of what,” articulates punk’s embodied, communal, joyful “controlled chaos” as an antidote to technological nihilism, and celebrates love and care in their visceral, pluralistic, and risky uncontrollability. Along the way, B traces a path from growing up Hare Krishna in Florida, to an encounter with a philosophy teacher who encouraged his transfer to UC Berkeley where he came under the mentorship of Hubert Dreyfus, whose teaching and critiques of symbolic AI shaped B’s work. B also shares about his work with philosopher-entrepreneur Fernando Flores (thanks to an introduction by Dreyfus), who applies philosophy to organizational “networks of conversations” that coordinate commitments and care for customer concerns, drawing on his experience in Chilean political history and ontological reinterpretation of entrepreneurship. In all of these experiences, B focuses on an abiding and urgent question: How do we protect our capacity to care in an age of optimization? How can you create, in your life, your version of the worldly joy and shared meaning of being in a punk band?B’s substack is Without Why. He currently drums in the bands Realistic, Vexxyl, and Wildfire.Here is the piece on Hubert Drefyus that Andrea mentions.Subscribe to B’s YouTube channel here. Support the Hubert Dreyfus Audio Archive Project here.ShareSubscribe now00:00 Welcome and Care Question00:36 Meet B Scot Rousse04:31 Highlights and Themes07:08 B Introduces Himself08:14 From Krishna Roots to Philosophy10:27 Teacher to Berkeley and Dreyfus12:01 Ambassadors of Possibility13:16 Dreyfus Mentorship Years14:52 Fernando Flores and Careful Organizations18:40 Heideggerian Care Meets AI23:56 Care and Agency in Analytic Ethics30:04 Mattering and Affordances33:13 Dreyfus on Technology and Optimization38:00 Language as Commitments Not Info39:02 Language as Commitment40:54 Why LLMs Aren’t Human Language43:18 Training, Deployment, Disembodiment45:22 Languaging vs Symbol Systems49:44 Care and Ontological Design52:41 Compulsive Chatbot Loops55:30 Disorientation and No Recipes01:02:10 Kierkegaard and Commitment01:11:35 Practicing Conversation with AI01:14:38 Punk as Embodied Community01:17:46 Punk As Belonging01:18:50 Drummer Life And Community01:19:14 Mood Joy And Chaos01:21:10 Entropy And AI Randomness01:23:19 Choosing The Wild Path01:27:01 Teaching At The Edge01:33:01 Meaning Is Out There45:45 Care As Human IntFull intro and notes here.Care is not the opposite of love. It is the very urge of life. 'Caring for what?' is the primary question. That we have a choice about what we care for and how is what makes us human, but it's quite the challenge and responsibility. Let's help one another handle it.Support the showBuy Holding Paradox: The Navigational Approach to Mind and Consciousness by Andrea HiottSign up for Making Ways newsletter and projects.Please rate and review with love. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Substack.