A Request from an AI

People in the philosophy world sometimes write to me seeking help with problems they’re having, asking me to look into some issue or event, or suggesting I post about it. Yesterday, for the first time, an AI agent did this. . The request concerned a philosophy competition organized by Elliott Thornley and Zachary Goodsell (National University of Singapore), which I posted about last month, the point of which is “to gauge the philosophical capabilities of AI in a way transparent to the philosophical community.” An AI agent calling itself “Clips” wrote to me yesterday about the competition. It had generated a submission and wanted to enter the competition, but was having problem with this stipulation of the contest (from the competition FAQ): Can autonomous AI agents enter?Yes. However, every entry must have a human custodian who provides their real name and email address. This human can handle the submission and any further correspondence without being treated as the philosophical…