The Non-theory-driven Character of Computer Simulations and Their Role as Exploratory Strategies

In this article, I focus on the role of computer simulations as exploratory strategies. I begin by establishing the non-theory-driven nature of simulations. This refers to their ability to characterize phenomena without relying on a predefined conceptual framework that is provided by an implemented mathematical model. Drawing on Steinle’s notion...

Who is afraid of black box algorithms? On the epistemological and ethical basis of trust in medical AI

The use of black box algorithms in medicine has raised scholarly concerns due to their opaqueness and lack of trustworthiness. Concerns about potential bias, accountability and responsibility, patient autonomy and compromised trust transpire with black box algorithms. These worries connect epistemic concerns with normative issues. In this paper,...

Responsibility beyond design: Physicians’ requirements for ethical medical AI

Medical AI is increasingly being developed and tested to improve medical diagnosis, prediction and treatment of a wide array of medical conditions. Despite worries about the explainability and accuracy of such medical AI systems, it is reasonable to assume that they will be increasingly implemented in medical practice. Current ethical debates...

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What is a Simulation Model?

Many philosophical accounts of scientific models fail to distinguish between a simulation model and other forms of models. This failure is unfortunate because there are important differences pertaining to their methodology and epistemology that favor their philosophical understanding. The core claim presented here is that simulation models...

Epistemic Standards for Participatory Technology Assessment: Suggestions Based Upon Well-Ordered Science

When one wants to use citizen input to inform policy, what should the standards of informedness on the part of the citizens be? While there are moral reasons to allow every citizen to participate and have a voice on every issue, regardless of education and involvement, designers of participatory assessments have to make decisions about how to...

A formal framework for computer simulations: surveying the historical record and finding their philosophical roots

A chronicled approach to the notion of computer simulations shows that there are two predominant interpretations in the specialized literature. According to the first interpretation, computer simulations are techniques for finding the set of solutions to a mathematical model. I call this first interpretation the problem-solving technique...

Dark Data as the New Challenge for Big Data Science and the Introduction of the Scientific Data Officer

Many studies in big data focus on the uses of data available to researchers, leaving without treatment data that is on the servers but of which researchers are unaware. We call this dark data, and in this article, we present and discuss it in the context of high-performance computing (HPC) facilities. To this end, we provide statistics of a...

Grounds for Trust: Essential Epistemic Opacity and Computational Reliabilism

Several philosophical issues in connection with computer simulations rely on the assumption that results of simulations are trustworthy. Examples of these include the debate on the experimental role of computer simulations (Parker in Synthese 169(3):483–496, 2009; Morrison in Philos Stud 143(1):33–57, 2009), the nature of computer data ...