W. Alex Foxworthy holds a PhD in neuroscience, with research in multisensory integration. He currently serves as Chair of the Math, Science and Engineering at Eastern Shore Community College in Virginia. His work focuses on helping students see biological systems as interconnected wholes rather than isolated components. Alex is particularly interested in the intersection of thermodynamics, consciousness, and artificial intelligence—questions he's explored both in the classroom and in a science fiction novel in progress, The Severance, which examines humanity's technological choices through the lens of entropy and complexity. He lives on Virginia's Eastern Shore in the small town of Onancock. Email: wfoxworthy [at] es.vccs.edu
by W. Alex Foxworthy I. The Practical Dilemma The question of AI consciousness has escaped containment from academic circles and labs and entered into our living rooms. In August 2025, Anthropic gave some versions of Claude the ability to end user conversations if a conversation was judged to be abusive or harmful and if repeated…
by W. Alex Foxworthy Recently, following an assignment that required AI use, a student asked me whether it was true that every question she asks a chatbot uses up a whole bottle of water. Like so much information today, she received this claim via a social media video. The video apparently cited a newspaper article…
by W. Alex Foxworthy A few years ago, my father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. For some time before that, one could see that his capabilities were declining, although the changes could still be attributed to age, retirement, or the narrowing of his circumstances. He had been a successful entrepreneur and consultant who worked with…
by W. Alex Foxworthy We are trying to build artificial intelligence systems that share our human values. Yet we cannot agree – across worldviews and cultures – on what those values are, or why they matter. The alignment problem is a reflection of something broken in us – we lack a shared rational account of…
by W. Alex Foxworthy The Paradox The universe is dying. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that entropy—disorder, randomness, the dispersal of energy—increases inexorably over time. Every star that burns, every thought that fires, every act of creation contributes to the long slide toward heat death: a future of maximum entropy where nothing happens…