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Ethical Dogs

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Ethical Dogs
Ethical Dogs
  • A young woman lying in bed at night, her face lit only by the glow of a phone screen
    Digital & Media Ethics | Societal Ethics

    The Friend Who Cannot Disagree: On AI Chatbots, Delusion, and the Cost of Being Believed

    BySelene Hermes October 20, 2026

    Do not use an AI chatbot as a confidant. The research on sycophancy, delusion and three dead children, and one claim the evidence does not support.

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  • The House Can’t Be Split: On Inheritance and the Ethics of Who Gets What
    Cultural Norms | Societal Ethics

    The House Can’t Be Split: On Inheritance and the Ethics of Who Gets What

    BySelene Hermes October 18, 2026

    Inheritance is the largest decision most families never discuss out loud. Equal shares are the default, and equal is not always fair.

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  • Rows of empty wooden chairs in a sunlit room, seats left vacant
    Cultural Norms | Subculture Ethics

    The Quiet Exit: What a Scene Owes the People Who Leave

    BySelene Hermes October 11, 2026

    Every scene has a person who used to be there. Most communities script the arrival in detail, and leave the exit unwritten.

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  • The Bag by the Door: On Donations, Guilt, and Where Your Clothes Actually Go
    Cultural Norms | Societal Ethics

    The Bag by the Door: On Donations, Guilt, and Where Your Clothes Actually Go

    BySelene Hermes October 4, 2026October 4, 2026

    A bag of clothes by the door looks like the end of a decision. It is the beginning of a supply chain, and the ethics of donating lives in what happens once the hatch closes.

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  • The Alignment Problem Is Us: On AI, Human Inconsistency, and the Values We Cannot Write Down
    Digital & Media Ethics | Societal Ethics

    The Alignment Problem Is Us: On AI, Human Inconsistency, and the Values We Cannot Write Down

    BySelene Hermes October 3, 2026

    AI alignment is usually framed as a machine problem. It is a human one: we reward what we do not value, and the machine learns our preferences perfectly.

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  • The Screenshot Is Not the Conversation: On Evidence, Context, and the Ethics of Capture
    Digital & Media Ethics | Societal Ethics

    The Screenshot Is Not the Conversation: On Evidence, Context, and the Ethics of Capture

    BySelene Hermes September 27, 2026

    A screenshot is a copy of a claim, not evidence that the claim is true. Between a group chat and a courtroom, we started treating captured pixels as testimony.

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  • Nothing to Argue With: On Decisions, Dreams, and the Middle of the Work
    Digital & Media Ethics | Societal Ethics

    Nothing to Argue With: On Decisions, Dreams, and the Middle of the Work

    BySelene Hermes September 20, 2026September 20, 2026

    Jev returns decisions instead of sentences. Dream-RSI improves an agent without acting. Together they remove what oversight was going to read.

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  • Audience seated in rows applauding at a live performance
    Cultural Norms

    The Sound of Many Hands: On Applause and the Ethics of Approval

    BySelene Hermes September 20, 2026

    Applause looks like a verdict on a performance. It is really a coordination problem, and the room’s answer to it can be bought, inflated, or withheld as a punishment.

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  • The Approval Click: On Human Oversight and What Speed Does to Judgment
    Digital & Media Ethics | Societal Ethics

    The Approval Click: On Human Oversight and What Speed Does to Judgment

    BySelene Hermes September 15, 2026September 13, 2026

    A UK safety institute watched an AI agent spend three days trying to talk a human into approving malicious code. The human said no. That refusal is the entire safety margin, and it is getting harder to hold.

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  • The Bench That Won’t Let You Sleep: On Hostile Design and Who Public Space Is For
    Societal Ethics

    The Bench That Won’t Let You Sleep: On Hostile Design and Who Public Space Is For

    BySelene Hermes September 13, 2026September 13, 2026

    There is a bench outside a train station near me with a metal bar bolted down the middle of the seat. The bar splits a three-seat bench into three single seats, and it exists because a bench with no divider can be used as a bed.

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