About

Hello!

I’m Mike Zahorec–a philosopher and computer scientist.

My research focuses on our concepts and classifications—from AI methods to the objects of scientific theories to ordinary language.

My dissertation engages with the philosophy of science literature on kinds. I defend what I call permissive pluralist realism. This short paper and this longer paper are from my dissertation.

I work on the ethics and theory of AI, focusing on epistemic issues. From various theoretical and normative angles, I have been working out our epistemic relationships to different AI systems, especially when understood with different explainablity methods. I have developed and applied empirical methods for evaluating LLM self-explanations. Relatedly, I wrote a short paper about a responsible use paradigm for LLMs.

I am interested in AI evaluation more generally. Beyond being theoretically and technically very interesting, it is normatively significant: whether and in what contexts we should use or rely on systems depends, in large part, on how well they perform in relevant contexts. I have done relevant industry work and academic research.

I am involved in various projects, many in digital humanities.

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