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Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

economist.com

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Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#41

Post by anonymous908213 »

d_burfoot wrote: post #35

It is going to be a big problem for humanity when the superintelligent AIs start telling us that our political philosophies, to which everyone is deeply and emotionally attached, are total garbage. One obvious example is: we have a bizarre and anomalous belief that political union has a special moral status unlike other relationships (marital, financial, social, etc). In all other cases, relationships require consent…

What are you even talking about? The right to self-determination is literally Article 1 of the UN charter. Nations are governed by power relationships, not philosophical ones, so they ignore the charter, but you aren't proposing anything novel or groundbreaking in any way. It is, in fact, the very first sacred right enshrined in international law, and has been for over 70 years.

In practice, Americans supported their own independence, and they support independence for eg. Taiwan, but they don't support independence for the Confederacy because that would entail weakening their own nation. To the extent that anyone will try to rationalise the American Civil War, they might reach for slavery, but a philosophical belief that political union is absolute and nobody can declare independence is not it; at most that's just a flimsy post-facto justification for the already-decided fact that states must not allowed to secede for power reasons, and this is evident from the fact they don't condemn their own revolution and advocate for return to British governance.

Very self-serving that you believe superintelligent AI is going to tell people your ideas are the best ones, incidentally.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#43

Post by munk-a »

lelandfe wrote: post #33
rvz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time for the regular posts on "how do I transition from senior software engineer to philosopher?"

Buy a lantern and start holding it up to your coworkers’ faces saying you’re looking for a good coder

It carries the danger of one of your coworkers responding "What makes a coder good?" and stealing the promotion, though.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#44

Post by throwitaway222 »

bharxhav wrote: post #38

It'll be funny when AI will embody human philosophy better than us.

Jesus will come back in 2031 and say - oh shit where is everyone?

Humanoid Cylon pops out from the woods: Oh, crap you were really real! We exterminated all the humans a year ago. Well, I guess we did make a mistake.

Someone make an AI video of that.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#45

Post by munk-a »

personjerry wrote: post #2

Hmm I spent a good amount of time in big tech, now work in AI, and I minored in philosophy at Berkeley back in the day (Parmenides, Socrates, Plato etc.) How do I align myself with such a job?

Genuinely, understanding around philosophy of action has been deeply enriching over my life. To anyone trying to decide on a minor philosophy is always an excellent choice.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#46

Post by gaigalas »

YuechenLi wrote: post #19

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's interesting, however, what you describe is philosophy in a coloquial framing (non-technical, purpose-driven, etc).

AI companies are hiring academic philosophers, which is something else entirely. It's a discipline that dealt with centuries of socioeconomic changes, deep questions about reality and the self and other important topics that became relevant when humans started interacting with machines.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#47

Post by Hard_Space »

This is interesting. Until autumn of 2024, when the company was subsumed into a better-heeled AI-VFX concern, I worked for probably the best-known and earliest all-AI VFX house, whose ethics department was headed by a philosopher, though the company struggled to place him to practical advantage.

The only comment I can make on the general trend is that it's apparently good PR for cash-saturated startups. Ultimately what AI 'means' is certainly not the business of those making it (who are arguably least-qualified to comment); and insider insights offer no benefit that I can discern.

Re: Big AI labs are hiring philosophers

#48

Post by mgambati »

YuechenLi wrote: post #19

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’s context, not philosophy.
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