“Mental Exposomes and their Microbiomes”

SVH Castro

Postgenomic Intersections: Epistemology and Ethics for the Exposome and Microbiome
Politecnico di Milano, Milan (Italy)
March 2, 2026

Abstract:
The prospects for a single integration of ‘the’ human exposome-microbiome that provides genuine insight to aid human flourishing may be computationally unreachable, even if artificial intelligence and quantum computing live up to their promise.  Targeted integrations are yielding results, though: Mental health research targets like autism, clinical depression, and moral injury are known or suspected to have links to both microbiome and exposome. In order to understand the etiology and development of human phenotypes and medical conditions, then, digital footprints that are both passively and actively generated could be used to model individual exposomes. When integrated with microbiome profiles over time from those individuals and their microbiomic exposures, it is at least theoretically possible to track these dynamic interactions of a human life and correlate them with developmental stages, onsets, and remissions.  

There are, of course, at least three deep ethical problems with this research trajectory. 1. The ethics of privacy in the digital age is not specific to exposome-microbiome integration, but its issues become increasingly acute as integrations of all varieties are normalized and serving as a data subject becomes increasingly inescapable. 2. Given that AI is the only means we have for processing the vast amounts of data involved, all the ethical AI problems of hallucination, jailbreaking, replicability, and explainability are critical and unsolved. 3. Finally, the level and kinds of control this might grant – to individuals to control their own development, or grant to others to control them – presents new philosophical issues for relational autonomy.

“Hmmm…Humor and Medicine, Mnemonics and Memory”

SVH Castro

Philosophy of Humor Session
American Philosophical Society, Central Division Meeting
February 18, 2026

Abstract: In this talk I use some considerations from the philosophy of humor discourse and a little bit from the philosophy of memory and cognition to motivate a hypothesis that is in principle empirically testable.  The research question concerns how to use humor or playfulness well in the construction of mnemonics for medical contexts.  The philosophy of humor contribution comes primarily from incongruity and cognitive shift theory and its implications for mental agility and flow states.  I also throw Kant in the mix, as one does, by appeal to his theory of imagination.   

“Becoming Kin: Nurturing Mindful Arts Based Practices with the Natural Environment”

Lori Santos, Susan G. Sterrett, Susan VH Castro

Hawaii International Conference on Education (HICE)
January 9, 2026

Abstract: Session guides for this workshop introduce participants to three layers of nature journaling experiences, guiding them to develop their own approaches and experiences. Examples shown include how people have historically and presently combined text/symbols and image/drawings to document and communicate creative expressions of place. Indigenous artists who engage Indigenous philosophies of land-based kinship in art [Santos], creative writing prompts and illustrated texts from Japanese history (emakimono) [Castro], and scientific botanical journaling [Sterrett] will inform prompts for personal exploration.

Seed funding for developing this work was provided by a MURPA grant to the three presenters, summer 2024.

“AI Ethics for OI: Communicating Moral Status through Mindreading Technologies for Organoid Intelligence”

SVH Castro

Abstract:

Organoid Intelligence (OI) is the development of lab-grown mini-brains from induced pluripotent human cells for computational purposes. OI promises to offer self-organizational, growth, and healing capabilities with negligible energy costs and heat production compared to AI in silica. Given the environmentally catastrophic projections for AI in silica, organoid computing and other synthetic biological intelligence (SBI) alternatives might offer a more ethical path. Obviously, however, sentience, consciousness, and a subjective point of view may arise from the organization and growth of brain cells. Calls for emphasizing the critical importance of ethics in OI are thus common and sincere but often empty.

Until recently there was little hope of determining which levels and kinds of complexity in OI could give rise to ethical markers of moral status. Now mindreading technologies like mind-to-text brain implants for stroke patients have advanced to the point of detecting specific language intention such as “I’m thirsty” from real-time electroencephalographic data from living human brains. While we are still quite far from being able to use AI to detect the precursors of moral status so as to limit OI research subjects to remain within any given ethical boundary space, the Precautionary Principle and Non-maleficence strongly imply that subjects protection procedures like the US institutional review board (IRB) approval process are needed now.

The contribution to OI ethics that I want to try to make is twofold. First, using what we’re learning from mindreading R&D can and should be applied, synchronously, to the moral marker problem in OI. Second, Indigenous metaethics, specifically a kinship approach to research subjects, may offer a way to unify and make coherent the regulatory principles and procedures that we need for the 21st Century.

“Medical Integrity, Algorithmic Intimacy, and Organoid AI”

SVH Castro

April 12, 2025

1. What is medical integrity in the emerging age of AI, given prompt-hacking, hallucination, and unexplainable unreplicable results?
2. How can we ethically manage the new forms of unwanted algorithmic medical intimacies in precision, personalized medicine?
3. As lab-grown human cell mini-brains become complex enough to model Alzheimer’s and generate compute power (organoid intelligence), what metrics and protocols can we apply to protect these living research subjects? 

The third question is merely raised in this talk. I discuss the question and its implications in further detail in the AI for OI talk presented at the University of Malaga in July 2025.

“Algorithmic Humor”

SVH Castro

Feburary 22, 2025

Abstract: For decades the internet has been littered with found humor generated by naughty autocorrect glitches and spontaneous incongruities. This year generative AI based on large language models has decidedly leveled up. Today ChatGPT can write a passable sitcom scene in a style and theme of the prompter’s choice, and the techno-public is just beginning to explore what else chatbots and similar technology can generate. This quasi-singularity in AI development reframes questions for philosophy of humor, philosophy of technology, epistemology, and personhood. Drawing from Susan Sterrett’s work on the Turing Test, aspects of the explainable AI movement, and contemporary work in the philosophy of humor, I outline a general approach to theorizing algorithmic humor.

“Healthy Humor”

SVH Castro

March 20, 2024

Abstract: Christopher Boorse is often credited with elevating philosophical questions regarding our conceptions of health and disease to found philosophy of medicine as a developing specialty in academic philosophy. John Morreal is similarly credited with founding philosophy of humor. This talk brings together considerations from both these traditions to establish a framework for understanding healthy humorand its potential contrast concepts, ranging from sick humor to considering what might qualify as a humor disability .

Castro, Susan V. H. “Medical and Algorithmic Intimacy: Philosophical Considerations”, Artful Medicine Symposium, October 2023.

Castro, Susan V. H. “Ethics of Big Data”, WSU Academic Resources Conference, January 2023.

Castro, Susan V. H. Panelist for “Academic Integrity in the Age of AI”, WSU Academic Resources Conference, January 2023.

Castro, Susan V. H. “Ethics of Professional Judgment in Dentistry”, Wichita District Dental Society (CME credit in ethics).

Castro, Susan V. H. “Sublime Humor”, APA Central, Philosophy of Humor Session, February 2022.

Castro, Susan V. H. “On the ‘logics’ of renga” Kansas Philosophical Society, February 2020.

Castro, Susan V. H. “The Category-Theoretic Space of Kant’s Imagination”, History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS), Minneapolis, June 2016.

Castro, Susan V. H. “The Ambitious Idea of Kant’s Corollary”, International Kant Congress, Vienna, September 2015.

Castro, Susan V. H. “Acting as a Double Agent without Becoming Two Faced”, Association of Fundraising Professionals Annual Ethics Seminar, October 17, 2014.

Castro, Susan V. H. (forthcoming 2026) “Refocusing on Focal Things as Agentic Games: Pokémon Game Boy, Renga, and Chatbots” Southwest Philosophy Review 42(2).

Castro, Susan V. H. (2022) “Prosecuting the Case Against Clewis” Philosophy of Humor Yearbook 4:283-6.

This is a pompous, tongue-in-cheek, Kantian-insider roast. It is not at all the proper book review I was asked to write.  

Tags: Philosophy of Humor, Immanuel Kant, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Art

Castro, Susan V. H. (2022) “ Paradigms of Smart Farming: Chemical, Ecological, Algorithmic” MDPI Proceedings, 2021 Summit of the International Society for the Study of Information (IS4SI), Philosophy and Computing Session.

Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Agriculture, Metaphysics, Ethics

Castro, Susan V. H. (2020) “Engendering Algorithmic Oppression” Blog of the American Philosophical Association.

Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Diversity and Inclusion, Women in Philosophy.

Castro, Susan V. H. (2019) “A Kantian Theory of the Sensory Processing Subtype of ASD [Autism]”Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics, 6(1):1-15.

Tags: Autism spectrum, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Immanuel Kant, Sensory Disorders

Castro, SVH (2018) “Zeami’s Reply to Plato: On the Art of Sarugaku”Japan Studies Association Journal 15(1):1-22.

Tags: Japanese Philosophy, Sarugaku, Noh Theater, Zeami Motokiyo, Plato, Philosophy of Art, Metaphysics