Appropriately enough, Luciano Floridi (Yale), known for his work in the philosophy of information and technology, may be the first philosopher with a… well, what should we call this thing?

It’s an AI chatbot trained on his works that can then answer questions about what he says in them, but also can extrapolate somewhat to offer suggestions as to what he might think about topics not covered in those works.

“AI chatbot” doesn’t quite capture the connection it has to the person whose thoughts it is trained on, though. Its creator gave it the name “LuFlot.” But we need a name for the kind of thing LuFlot is, since surely there will end up being many more of them, used for more than just academic purposes.

My suggestion: “Extended Thought and Response Agent”, or “ExTRA” (henceforth, just “extra”).

Floridi’s extra was developed by Nicolas Gertler, a first-year student at Yale, and Rithvik “Ricky” Sabnekar, a high school student, “to foster engagement” with Floridi’s ideas, according to a press release:

Meant to facilitate teaching and learning, the chatbot is trained on all the books that Floridi has published over his more than 30-year academic career. Within seconds of receiving a query, it provides users detailed and easily digestible answers drawn from this vast work. It’s able to synthesize information from multiple sources, finding links between works that even Floridi might not have considered.

In part, it’s like a version of “Hey Sophi“, discussed here three years ago, except that it’s publicly accessible, and not just a personal research tool.

Gertler and Sabnekar founded Mylon Education, “a startup company seeking to transform the educational landscape by reconstructing the systems through which individuals generate and develop their ideas,” according to the press release. “LuFlot is the startup’s first project.”

You can try out Floridi’s extra here.

The post Say Hello to this Philosopher’s ExTRA first appeared on Daily Nous.