Led by the Energy team, this is a great opportunity to learn about Warwick’s energy infrastructure and key projects.

All Warwick staff are welcome to come along and join us for a good old sing song every Thursday lunchtime. It’s a very relaxed, friendly atmosphere and a good opportunity to leave the work behind for 45 minutes, meet new people and have fun. Everyone, regardless of singing ability/experience, is welcome. We sing a variety of music and will tailor the choices to the choir's preferences, the option to have sheet music is there but not a necessity at all. We would love to see you there!

The Anatomy of Risky Choice: Uncovering Subjective Choice Reasons with Large Language Models

Abstract: I will present a novel approach to understanding the subjective reasons underlying risky decision-making, enabled by large language models (LLM). Traditional models of risky choice often assume that decision-making relies on a single, stable reason or process, regardless of context. This simplification overlooks the variability in reasoning that may occur depending on the situation. To address these limitations, we developed an LLM-based approach that utilizes free-text reports to reveal the subjective reasons behind decisions, and we implemented a proof-of-concept in three stages. First, we extracted a comprehensive set of nearly 50 decision reasons from formal models, heuristics, and basic motivations. Second, we collected free-text retrospective verbal reports from 86 participants after each of 20 risky choices they made. Third, we employed advanced prompt engineering techniques with a state-of-the-art LLM to identify the reasons mentioned in these reports.

Our results provide strong evidence that decision reasons vary systematically across different choice problems but less across individuals. Furthermore, a simple predictive model based on the identified reasons achieves an out-of-sample accuracy of about 92%, validating the approach. Our results suggest that combining verbal reports and an LLM-based analysis with a large sample and comprehensive set of choice problems can uncover how people make risky decisions, including intricate relationships between decision reasons and types of choice problems.

Warwick Law School are delighted to invite you to join us for our Annual Black History Month Public Lecture

Title: 'The man who photobombed De Gaulle'

Abstract: The 80th anniversary of the Liberation of Paris offers an opportunity to explore the discrepancy between race-based mythologies around the second world war and black involvement in the war and what that tells us about Europe as a whole and how black people’s presence here is misunderstood. How would conversations about responsibility, obligation, entitlement, sacrifice, patriotism, immigration, integration, welfare, equality and justice be understood when it applied to black people if their contributions to the war were fully acknowledged.

Gary will highlight these issues with specific reference to the decision to ensure only white French troops could be seen to liberate Paris and the scene, the day after the Liberation, in which a Gabonese soldier, Georges Dukson, effectively photobombs General De Gaulle as he parades along the Champs Elysee.

Please register your place

Drinks will be served from 5:30pm followed by the Lecture at 6:00pm - 7:00pm

Talk title: The Spooky Origins of Hypertime

Abstract:
Hypertime is a theory that postulates that time has two or more dimensions. Much of the groundwork underlying current theories of hypertime in analytic philosophy is generally attributed to discussions in the second half of the 20th century—either in connection with the objection against the passage of time or as a means to resolve problems in the philosophy of time travel. This paper demonstrates that the historical roots of hypertime extend much further back. I will demonstrate that sophisticated theories of multi-dimensional time, hitherto neglected by historians of philosophy, were developed by philosophers decades before the interest in time travel took off. These early pioneers of hypertime were working on “psychical research,” the study of psychical phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, or ghosts, widely popular towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. They developed multi-dimensional time as a tool to resolve various problems with precognition, the purported ability to see the future. I will conclude by indicating the pitfalls of neglecting this important chapter in the history of the philosophy of time.

Location

IAS Seminar Room C0.02
Zeeman Building

Hybrid Seminar
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Meeting ID: 361 985 080 834
Passcode: yAcRXL