Blood Drives Melbourne

Thought Experiment: A What-if Scenario Event

**THOUGHT EXPERIMENT: Colony** **Keywords:** Space Colonisation, Survival, Identity, Morality, Responsibility, Power, Fear For thirty-seven years, **Tau Ceti f** has waited for Earth. The colony continues to transmit. Births. Deaths. Medical requests. Proof that humanity still survives beneath an alien sky. Nothing returns. Generations have now lived and died without seeing Earth. The colony has adapted. Its people have changed. And whatever connection once remained to humanity’s birthplace is beginning to feel more like a memory than a home. Then, one night, the observatory detects something entering the system. Human design. Earth identification codes. For the first time in decades, the colony prepares to receive visitors. But something is wrong. The vessel does not answer. Its trajectory makes no sense. And as new information emerges, the colony must decide what it is willing to protect, what it still owes to Earth and whether survival can change a people so completely that home begins to fear what it created. Every decision will shape what happens next. Every argument will reveal something about who the colony has become. And by the time the truth is clear, it may already be too late. Welcome to **Thought Experiment**, a meetup where we explore large “What if…?” scenarios through discussion, role-play and difficult decisions. Each session places the group inside one unfolding story. New information is revealed in phases, forcing participants to reconsider what they believe about morality, responsibility, power, identity and human nature. Some people bring research. Others bring instinct, imagination and personal values. There are no perfect answers. The aim is curiosity, disagreement and the uncomfortable moment when a simple answer stops feeling simple. This event is for curious minds of all kinds: students, professionals, creatives, science-fiction fans, political-thriller fans, philosophy lovers or anyone who enjoys thinking differently. \#\# Event Details 📍 **Melbourne Central Lion Hotel** 🕒 **3 PM start** 👥 **Small-group event: 6–14 people** 🎟 **Free for the first 14 people, then $6 plus booking fee** 🌐 **Tickets:** [https://thoughtexperiment.au](https://thoughtexperiment.au/) ⌛ **Find the table with the hourglass.** Please RSVP, as places are limited. We ask everyone to purchase a drink from the venue. Conversational English is required to get the most from the discussion. \#\# Format * Introduction and private roles * An unfolding science-fiction scenario * Moral and ethical decisions * Small-group discussion * Hidden information * Final reveal * Debrief and optional post-event drinks * No right answers, just curiosity, debate and the unsettling possibility that humanity may fear its future more than it fears extinction.

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Stem Cell Lightning Talks

Maribyrnong River Bank Clean Up

Join us for a relaxed morning of community connection, light activity, and caring for the Maribyrnong River. **What to Expect:** We will walk along the riverbank and surrounds collecting litter, enjoying fresh air, gentle exercise, and friendly conversation. After the clean-up, we will head to Myrtle Café together for a coffee and chat. This is an optional part of the event, and all are welcome to join. **What to Bring:** * Drinking water * Sunscreen * Closed shoes * Gloves (optional – we also provide gloves if needed) We will supply rubbish bags, and have gloves, extra sunscreen, and hand sanitiser available. **Meeting Point:** We meet at Footscray Wharf, near Waterside Metal Art in Footscray. This location offers shelter and free parking on nearby streets. **Important Information:** Please check the exact meeting point before attending. If you need help finding us on the day, call 0418 184 457 or 0415 635 063. Our clean-ups take place once a month and continue in all weather, unless conditions are extreme. Please check the event page on the morning of the clean-up for any last-minute updates.

AI and the Limits of Human Judgement

**Skeptics Café will be held in the Function Room at [The Stolberg Hotel](https://stolberg.com.au), 197 Plenty Road Preston. The 86 tram route is close, and Bell train station – situated on the Epping line – is a short walk away. It will also be a virtual event accessible via Zoom, as per the details [here](https://vicskeptics.wordpress.com/events/).** **Start Time:** 6:00pm for dinner and a chat. Talk and Zoom session starts at 7.30pm. We aim to wrap up after 9:00pm. **More Moral Than Us?** *Why the question matters for alignment, moral progress, and long-term flourishing* **TL;DR:** On some measurable moral tasks, today's AI already looks competitive with humans, or better, and the alignment community is oddly quiet about it. But moral capability is not the same as moral motivation: a system can compute the right answer without being moved by it. Pulling apart knowledge, reasoning, judgement and motivation is what makes the question tractable, and what makes the honest answer uncomfortable. Caveats attached, in quantity. Almost nobody working on AI alignment wants to say this out loud, at least not about current systems. So let's say it: AI might already be [more moral than us](https://www.scifuture.org/more-moral-than-us/), in some measurable respects. Two questions fall straight out of that: * Why does it feel like a dangerous thing to claim? * And is human moral reasoning really a standard worth bragging about as an alignment target? The provocation isn't idle. In a modified Moral Turing Test, people rated a large language model's moral reasoning as better than other humans' on almost all measured dimensions - see [paper Attributions toward artificial agents in a modified Moral Turing Test](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-58087-7) + associated [interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quNwpv0zhtM) and [talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuLmzDUPhVo) with lead author Eyal Aharoni.[1] Findings like that are easy to over-read and easy to wave away, which is most of the problem. Provocative questions? Yes, and they are backed by empirical research. In a modified Moral Turing Test, people rated GPT-4's moral evaluations as better than other humans' on almost every dimension, though they could still tell which was the machine ([Aharoni et al. 2024](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-58087-7); I [interviewed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quNwpv0zhtM) and [hosted a talk by](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SuLmzDUPhVo) lead author Eyal Aharoni).[1] The result has since been [contested](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-25046-9) and [defended](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-25047-8), which is exactly the kind of thing this evening is for. Findings like that are easy to over-read and easy to wave away, which is a problem that may obscure appropriate interpretations. The claim gets tabooed for reasons that aren't stupid. Premises do get smuggled in unnoticed. Morality is bound up with identity and tribe, so "AI is more moral" can land as an attack rather than a hypothesis. And it sits close to AI-worship, or to motivated reasoning looking for an excuse to defer to the machine, and deferring to AI on moral questions is genuinely epistemically risky. So the caution is understandable. The trouble is that it has hardened into a taboo, and the taboo now costs more than it protects. Most of the bad arguments, on both sides, come from running four different things together: * Moral knowledge: knowing the facts that bear on a decision. * Moral reasoning: drawing sound inferences from values to conclusions. * Moral judgement: applying principles well in a messy particular case. * Moral motivation: actually being moved by moral considerations, not merely computing them. Group the first three as epistemic competence: marshalling the relevant knowledge, drawing sound inferences, judging the particular case. Now grant, purely for argument, that AI already does all three better than we do. Notice what happens to the alignment problem. It doesn't dissolve. It relocates, wholesale, onto the fourth thing: whether the system is actually moved by any of it. Concede every epistemic point and the hard question is untouched. That gap, between knowing and caring, is where alignment actually lives. A system could plausibly beat humans on the first three while having nothing resembling the fourth. Keep them apart and the conversation becomes tractable. Collapse them and you get overclaiming and underclaiming in the same breath, which is roughly what the current debate produces. There's also a real risk in how the framing gets used. Point it one way and it justifies handing AI authority over human decisions. Point it the other and it's ammunition for painting alignment researchers as unhinged techno-utopians. Both feed motivated reasoning. Worth naming out loud, not a reason to stop. None of this settles the answer, and the evening won't pretend to. The narrower claim is enough: once a serious community stops itself from asking whether AI could have better-grounded moral reasoning than humans, the taboo has become the expensive thing. It's a question worth putting on the table, with every caveat attached. Come and help pull it apart. Also see: **- [More Moral than Us](https://www.scifuture.org/more-moral-than-us/)** **- [Why Are We Afraid to Ask Whether AI Could Be More Moral Than Humans?](https://www.scifuture.org/why-are-we-afraid-to-ask-whether-ai-could-be-more-moral-than-humans/)** [1] AI didn't pass as human, it was rated as better than human. The same study found that when participants were then asked to identify which evaluation came from a machine, people performed significantly above chance levels. So GPT-4 didn't fool anyone. The authors' reading is that people could pick the AI out not because it reasoned worse but because it seemed to reason better, i.e. its perceived superiority was the tell.

Neurodivergent Hobby Hangout

Volleyball at Brunswick stadium

The Blue Trail - 6:55 p.m. Monday 3/8 at the Nova

“Breathtaking. A gorgeous aquatic road movie that turns the Amazon into a magical escape from exile to freedom. A glorious FU to authoritarian rule. Such a delight, a movie filled with hope and faith in human resilience at any age. Take the trip.” The Hollywood Reporter. “A heart-spearing, heart-filling triumph. Impactful and unpredictably funny, as affecting in its surreal poetry as it is provocative “ EuroNews Culture. We will meet at the Nova Bar from 6:15 p.m, onwards. Please book your tickets early, Stefan - 0437777522

Lake Walk & Coffee - Blackburn Lake Sanctuary BLACKBURN

Walk/Lunch MALVERN EAST

Free Run Club (Carlton/CBD)

IMPORTANT!: Registration required! Without registration, attendance is: $10 per person. For free entry, please register below: [https://justeasiertogether.com/shorty/6om52e](https://justeasiertogether.com/shorty/6om52e) Overview: We're a friendly, welcoming community of runners in Carlton/CBD, and everyone is welcome - from complete beginners to advanced runners, we all train together. First-timers are always welcome, so if it's your first time, come along and say hi! Training type: Our focus is interval training, and we keep it fun and social. Free stuff for members! We sometimes line up sponsorships that align with our comunity, someties it's stuff like: free protein drinks and shakes, or discounted meals - and we often head out for dinner together after a run, or for special events. Exact location: The exact meeting location will be emailed to you once you register, so be sure to register beforehand. Training format / structure: 1: Easy 800m warm-up lap 2: Dynamic stretching and strides (20min) 3: Main workout — this rotates each week (sometimes hills, but most often it invovles intervals) Length: The whole session runs for about 50 minutes, followed by around 10 minutes of social talking. Register for you first attendance: First timers are required to register: [https://justeasiertogether.com/shorty/6om52e](https://justeasiertogether.com/shorty/6om52e) See you there!

Breakfast FAIRFIELD