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Once academic, philosophy is finding real-world demand inside leading A.I. labs. David Palma for Unsplash+<\/p>\n\t\tOnce academic, philosophy is finding real-world demand inside leading A.I. labs. David Palma for Unsplash+<\/p>\n
For years, ambitious students eager to make their mark in Silicon Valley pursued degrees such as computer science, software engineering and data analytics\u2014formerly dependable pathways that, in the age of A.I., have turned precarious<\/a>. In an unexpected turn, however, at least one degree is now translating into high-profile jobs across the industry: philosophy.\u00a0<\/p>\n As leading A.I. firms race to cement their dominance<\/a>, they are also grappling with the complexities of developing and releasing powerful systems with opaque inner workings. Enter philosophers, who are increasingly taking on formal roles at companies like Anthropic<\/a> and Google DeepMind<\/a>. Their work focuses on interpreting model behavior, aligning systems with human values, and guiding decisions about how these technologies should be treated.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIt seems to be a good time for philosophers on the job market,\u201d Anil Seth<\/a>, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Sussex who researches consciousness, told Observer. \u201cThis is great. More companies should hire philosophers, because thinking clearly is increasingly important.\u201d<\/p>\n Prominent philosophers at Anthropic, Google DeepMind<\/p>\n One of the field\u2019s most prominent figures is Amanda Askell<\/a>, a Scottish-born philosopher who studied at New York University and the University of Oxford. After working at OpenAI<\/a>, Askell moved to Anthropic in 2021, where she focuses on shaping the behavior of its Claude model. She is joined by fellow philosophers such as Joe Carlsmith<\/a>, who came to Anthropic last year after a seven-year stint at Open Philanthropy and similarly works on Claude\u2019s character.<\/p>\n At Google DeepMind, the company\u2019s efforts around A.I. and morality are led by Iason Gabriel<\/a>, a former Oxford professor with a background in political philosophy. The lab also recently hired Henry Shevlin<\/a>, a professor at the University of Cambridge, to work on issues such as \u201cmachine consciousness, human-A.I. relationships, and AGI readiness<\/a>,\u201d according to his announcement.<\/p>\n Questions about whether A.I. could ever achieve consciousness\u2014and what that would mean for human-machine relationships\u2014remain especially complex. Companies must avoid repeating \u201cmoral errors\u201d while also steering clear of prematurely granting rights to A.I. systems, which could risk \u201champering our ability to control them, to regulate them, to keep them aligned with human society,\u201d said Seth.<\/p>\n Anthropic has been among the most vocal companies on this front, not only hiring philosophers but also establishing a dedicated model welfare team<\/a>. Meta<\/a>\u2019s chief A.I. officer, Alexandr Wang<\/a>, has likewise described model welfare as \u201ca very important topic<\/a>\u201d that deserves more consideration. Others are more skeptical. Mustafa Suleyman<\/a>, CEO of Microsoft<\/a> AI, has warned that treating A.I. systems as conscious could lead society into dangerous territory.<\/a><\/p>\n For now, the motivations behind the industry\u2019s hiring of philosophers appear substantive. \u201cThey\u2019re hiring good people, not just hiring people who would be sort of PR types and not just people who would translate for the public what\u2019s happening,\u201d Peter Godfrey-Smith<\/a>, a philosophy professor at the University of Sydney, told Observer. \u201cThese are people who probe the issues,\u201d added the philosopher, who formerly counted Shevlin amongst his Ph.D. students at the CUNY Graduate Center.<\/p>\n The intersection of A.I. and philosophy is not limited to Silicon Valley. Academia is rapidly adapting as longstanding philosophical questions\u2014about consciousness, morality, minds and computation\u2014take on new urgency. In some cases, scholars working at this intersection are even developing new forms of language that incorporate mathematical techniques, reflecting changes that did not exist a decade ago, according to Godfrey-Smith.<\/p>\n