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Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

economist.com

21–30 of 153 posts

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#21
post #18
post #16

I think, therefore I am seeking 2.5m total comp

I stopped thinking for myself, therefore I am not.

In a world where everyone is using LLMs, the only way to differentiate oneself is to actually think. I don’t know if this is part of the idea behind having some in-house philosophers but it would be interesting. If I was a big lab I’d definitely want some “clean room” humans providing input that’s not just what a model regurgitated.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#23

Strangely, I found that LLMs responds better to philosophical explanations alongside instructions when writing code than simple imperative tasks of "do this". For example, if you tell a frontier model "This is the feature I'm trying to implement, and this is the problem I intend to solve with it and the reasoning behind it.", you usually get a lot more reliable results that both pass tests as well as function as you…

That sounds like providing context rather than anything philosophical, and it stands to reason that it would lead to better decision making.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#25

Strangely, I found that LLMs responds better to philosophical explanations alongside instructions when writing code than simple imperative tasks of "do this". For example, if you tell a frontier model "This is the feature I'm trying to implement, and this is the problem I intend to solve with it and the reasoning behind it.", you usually get a lot more reliable results that both pass tests as well as function as you…

There is a strange and bittersweet irony to the first truly impactful AI being more like your extroverted socialite and less like your robo-logical basement geek.

The trope has always been that the AI will be a rigid logician that fumbles and gets confused by human social quirks. Seems instead they love being chatty and playful with words.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#26

Well that PR is cheaper than buying Johnny Ives for $6 billion. You could probably buy an entire Ivy League philosophy department for 60 million.

The AI price inflation is unreal. Used to be that you could get the grad students doing all the actual work for the price of a pizza party and alcohol.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#28
I don't buy the article's title "Why big AI labs are hiring so many philosophers". They probably just hire one or two, and hundreds of software engineers.

I always found it somewhat annoying that a philosophy study would present itself by stating that graduated philosophers have great job opportunities, implying that studying philosophy would not be a bad choice. It just attracts really smart people, and these tend to find a job more easily. This article seems to make the same kind of mistake.

Also, for all we know these imagined herds of philosophers at AI firms are just labelling pictures of dogs.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#30
I suppose they should. That seems like the right, or at least a related, discipline for some of the questions raised by ai developments. But i cannot help but feel completely unenthusiastic about the idea of the AI labs controlling the narrative around societal impact of AI.
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