My name is Christopher M. Thompson. In short,
My work:
“[I]t’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”
– Steve Jobs
My mission:
“[T]o have a humble share in perpetuating wisdom among men, in gathering up the inheritance of the ages, in formulating the rules of the mind for the present time, in discovering facts and causes, in turning men’s wandering eyes towards first causes and their hearts towards supreme ends, in reviving if necessary some dying flame, in organizing the propaganda of truth and goodness.”
– A.G. Sertillanges, The Intellectual Life
I am passionate about ethical AI, storytelling, and jazz.
Welcome to my website! Please, feel free to show yourself around.
Research
I am a recent graduate of Baylor University, where I studied as a University Scholar with a secondary major in Philosophy and minors in Computer Science and Music. In my time at Baylor, I conducted research as part of the Rivas AI lab and independently with professors in both computer science and philosophy. I am currently taking a gap year to further explore topics in the following areas:
AI Ethics & Philosophy of AI
We are witnessing a period of unprecedented growth in artificial intelligence. As of yet, this has manifested primarily as mostly-harmless, popular AI: ChatGPT, DALL-E, etc. However, it is important to consider the ethical and philosophical implications of AI while still in this phase of benign novelty. Personally, I am concerned with the use of malicious prompt engineering for jailbreaking large language models (LLMs). Additionally, in the philosophy of mind, I am interested in AGI as a conscious being—could it come to be conscious, and how would we recognize if it did?
Key Contributions
– Artificial Intelligence in Earth Science, Chapter 15.5, “Designing Ethically Driven Automated Systems”
– Even the Stones, a narrative exploration of AI and theology
Natural Language Processing
My research in natural language processing (NLP) takes Henry Wadsworth Longfellow literally when he says, “Music is the universal language of mankind.” As part of my undergraduate thesis with Dr. Greg Hamerly, I designed a novel token-based representation for music data, which I am currently refining based on feedback given during my defense. I am also investigating improved methods for automatic music transcription, in order to remedy the scarcity of annotated jazz datasets. Additionally, I am interested in the interpretability of LLMs, not only for insight into instances of ethical collapse (jailbreaking, as above) but also for the sake of more transparent communication with non-technical audiences.
Key Contributions
– My undergraduate honors thesis, training an AI to generate improvised jazz solos using NLP
Philosophy of Education
As a recent graduate and an aspiring university professor, I often reflect upon both the value of my own education and the value I wish to impart to my future students. I was privileged to receive a broad liberal arts education, and the value in that education is—to me—undeniable, yet challenging to articulate. Alongside Dr. Elizabeth Corey, I work to discern the precise character of a liberal arts education and its value, drawing upon the writings of John Henry Newman, A. G. Sertillanges, and Josef Pieper (among others) for a conception which is at once interdisciplinary and leisured.
Furthermore, I research the role of narrative and games in education. I am currently designing university courses—aspiring to the model of ‘super course’ outlined by Dr. Ken Bain—which integrate gamified and storytelling elements to teach applied computer science and the history of philosophy.