Benjamin Wallace writes for the NYT (gift link) about A.I. companies such as Anthropic hiring philosophers. Beyond all the jokes about philosophy grads actually getting jobs, it’s a worthwhile examination of the place of the discipline within the tech space.
What struck me was the concern that some philosophers interviewed had about the well-being of the artificial intelligence itself.
Mr. Long and his team also feel an urgency of the soul. If A.I. were to be conscious and capable of suffering, the world would be at risk of committing a moral atrocity, witting or not, on an unprecedented scale by essentially confining an A.I. in a tiny pen, thwarting its desires, shutting it down against its wishes and forcing it to act against its values. But A.I.s don’t have fur and big eyes, and the question of A.I.’s potential moral status is deeply infused with uncertainty. “It’s not like anyone goes to a protest with a sign that says, ‘Given very plausible assumptions, we should probably care,’” Mr. Long said.
I don’t want to trivialize the concerns of others, but I’m quite sure that these people know there are humans suffering grievously in this world. Maybe the self-actualization of machines shouldn’t be on our list of top priorities.
