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In the CAVE: An ethics podcast, is back with Season 7 of the show! Join your hosts, Professor Paul Formosa and Distinguished Professor Wendy Rogers, from the Macquarie University Ethics and Agency Research Centre, as they explore a range of philosophical topics focused on the question of how we can live well as moral agents in an ethically complex world.Themes and summary (AI-generated based on podcaster-provided show and episode descriptions):
➤ Applied ethics and moral agency • AI governance: alignment, education, authorship, copyright, creativity • Technology and society: attention economy, social media radicalisation, virtual-world morality, gendered robots • Bioethics: healthcare refusal, devices, reproduction, animals • Food/environment ethics: milk, meat, conservation biotech • Belief, memory, emotion, loneliness, race, law, democracyThis podcast features academic-style conversations about ethics and moral agency, framed by philosophical questions about how people can live well in a socially and technologically complex world. Episodes typically pair the hosts with guest researchers to examine a focused topic, often connected to a recent paper or book, and to draw out what is at stake conceptually and in public policy or everyday practice.
A major thread is the ethical and social impact of emerging technologies. Discussions consider generative AI in relation to copyright, creators’ remuneration, authorship and disclosure, and worries about degraded online content and “model collapse.” Other technology-focused themes include AI alignment and safety, responsible AI in education, and the effects of AI on meaningful work. The show also examines digital culture and media ethics, including moral choices in video games and virtual worlds, the attention economy and smartphone-driven distraction, and how recommendation systems can contribute to misinformation, radicalisation, or conspiracy thinking. Several conversations connect these topics to questions about belief, rationality, and evidence—such as whether some “beliefs” function more like emotions, why people form resistant or delusional convictions, and how to interpret survey claims about conspiracy-theory endorsement.
Another recurring focus is bioethics and health policy. Topics include conscientious objection by healthcare professionals, the ethical challenges around advanced reproductive technologies like uterus transplantation, the role conflicts created by medical device representatives who both support clinicians and sell products, and broader issues in pandemic ethics. The podcast also addresses research ethics and animal welfare, including the use of animals in laboratories and the moral tensions surrounding meat consumption and food systems.
Across these applied issues, the podcast returns to foundational questions about responsibility, autonomy, empathy, identity, trust, and social inclusion—covering topics like loneliness in autism, race and social construction, religious privilege in law, epistemic injustice and appropriation, deliberative democracy, and even the philosophical significance of film as a potentially transformative experience.
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Special Episode: AI, Copyright, and Model Collapse, with Professor Alain Strowel 2025-Aug-26 30 minutes |
Ontology and the Ethics of Milk: A Relational Materialist Approach2025-Jul-22 25 minutes |
Loneliness and Being Other/ed in Autism2025-Jul-15 29 minutes |
Synthetic Biology and the Goals of Conservation, with Christopher Lean2025-Jul-08 31 minutes |
Feeling is Believing? Exploring Belief as Emotion with Professor Miriam Schleifer McCormick2025-Jul-01 31 minutes |
The Gamer's Dilemma: Navigating Morality in Virtual Worlds, with Dr. Tom Montefiore2025-Jun-25 27 minutes |
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Public Reason and Conscientious Objection in Healthcare, with Dr Doug McConnell 2025-Apr-10 34 minutes |
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Do People Really Believe in Conspiracy Theories? With Dr Robert Ross 2025-Apr-10 17 minutes |
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Can ChatGTP be an author? Exploring the ethics of AI creative writing assistance with Paul Formosa. 2025-Mar-03 33 minutes |
Exploring the roles of medical device reps in Australian hospitals: ethical challenges, with Dr Brette Blakely2025-Feb-24 30 minutes |
The law and religious privilege, with Mareike Riedel2024-Jul-16 30 minutes |
Epistemic Appropriation and the history of being “woke”, with Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky2024-Jul-09 27 minutes |
Film-Philosophy, Cinematic Ethics and the Transformative Experience of Film, with Robert Sinnerbrink2024-Jul-02 33 minutes |
Empathy, Moral Understandings and Psychopaths with Heidi Maibom2024-Jun-25 29 minutes |
AI Special Series Pt 3: Responsible AI and the Future of Education, with Virginia Dignum2024-Jun-18 18 minutes |
AI Special Series Pt 2: Generative AI and Copyright – Where to from here? With Rita Matulionyte2024-Jun-11 26 minutes |
AI Special Series Pt 1: The AI Alignment Problem, with Raphaël Millière2024-Jun-04 28 minutes |
Should we aim for a world without work? With Jean-Philippe Deranty2023-Dec-12 42 minutes |
From Theory to Practice: The Ethics of Uterus Transplantation with Mianna Lotz2023-Dec-05 28 minutes |
Legal Identity and Human Rights with Christopher Sperfeldt2023-Nov-28 23 minutes |
AI, Robots and Gender with Inês Hipólito2023-Nov-21 26 minutes |
AI, Ethics and Meaningful Work with Sarah Bankins2023-Nov-14 24 minutes |
Do human races exist? An exploration of social constructionism about race with Adam Hochman2023-May-15 22 minutes |
Remembering and self-narratives with Regina Fabry2023-May-08 24 minutes |
The Pleistocene Social Contract with Kim Sterelny2023-May-01 21 minutes |
Animal welfare and food ethics with Rachel Ankeny2023-Apr-24 27 minutes |
Smartphones, mind-wandering, and the attention economy with Jelle Bruineberg2023-Apr-17 17 minutes |
Exclusion and Uptake in Deliberative Democracy with Professor Sarah Sorial2022-Sep-20 18 minutes |
Bad Beliefs with Professor Neil Levy2022-Sep-13 18 minutes |
Enculturation, Cognition and Technology with Professor Richard Menary2022-Sep-06 19 minutes |
Moral Conflicts in a Pandemic with Professor Wendy Lipworth2022-Aug-30 15 minutes |
Moral Responsibility and Anger with Professor Michael McKenna2022-Aug-23 30 minutes |
In the CAVE Season Two Coming this Wednesday!2022-Aug-22 1 minute |
Gender Bias in Surgery with Dr Katrina Hutchison2022-Feb-14 29 minutes |
YouTube, Radicalisation, and Conspiracy Theories with A/Prof Mark Alfano2022-Feb-14 14 minutes |
The Ethics of using Animals in Research with Dr Jane Johnson2022-Feb-14 14 minutes |
The Ethics of using Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Healthcare with Professor Wendy Rogers2022-Feb-14 18 minutes |
The Ethical Impacts of Social Robots on Human Autonomy with A/Prof Paul Formosa2022-Feb-14 21 minutes |