However, I think that there is a philosophical portion to that context as well: "What problem is this feature supposed to help with? How would you verify that passing unit tests means that the code is working as intended? Does this feature need to exist at all?" LLMs usually need these to be provided to them explicitly since they are not good at inferring the correct intent compared to humans, otherwise they just make something that looks right but doesn't work right.
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.
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.
I wonder if anyone who is connected with actual academic philosophy can comment on this. I'm pretty skeptical.
This is a field where it is notoriously hard to get a real academic position, I would bet there is no shortage of people for these roles.
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.
How do I align myself with such a job?
I think SBF and his education from birth (via his mother) in consequentialism should point to the issues made clear when that ethical approach goes wrong or operates from bad, egoistic data, which it’s generally always doing.
And prioritizing Consequentialism in AI, especially with weapons, is a dangerous bargain. "How do you make decisions when the consequences are unclear?" Since when are the full consequences _ever_ clear?
To save a few clicks: https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
> [The] PR industry, lurking like a huge, quiet submarine beneath the news. Of the stories you read in traditional media that aren't about politics, crimes, or disasters, more than half probably come from PR firms.
Imagine how bad it is on social media.
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.
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.
The kind of "philosophy" the article mentions is school-level and common knowledge, hopefully they don't need to hire anyone to learn about e.g. the Socratic method (their own LLMs will happily regurgitate it). Are they truly hoping to "buy philosophy" or have scholars "do philosophy" for their AI systems? Do these entrepreneurs even understand what philosophy is? I guess Silicon Valley really is doomed to rediscover (and misunderstand) the wheel again and again.
In any case, if I were a philosopher, I wouldn't count on this. This kind of jobs are very likely to fall prey to layoffs, and even worse if their "philosophizing" produces conclusions their employers don't like. I still remember when one of the FAANG (Google?) fired their head of AI ethics because they didn't like what she was saying. I think she may have been a bit abrasive, but really, philosophy isn't a product and if they are going to corral how philosophers think or communicate, it's not going to work.
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Edit: from TFA:
> TEN YEARS ago, as the AI revolution was gathering pace, arts and humanities students were told that, if they wanted to make themselves employable, they should “learn to code”. That may have been bad advice
More like made-up advice. Never heard of it. It's true it was often said (way before 10 years ago) that it was hard to find employment in the humanities, but really, who adviced them to "learn to code"? The (dumb) learn to code movement was not targeted specifically at them. Sometimes it seems to me articles get written in bizarro world.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8517186
take that top responder
> From philosophy? Are you kidding? There's simply no way AI is ever going to come from a bunch of people arguing over what is "qualia" and what is "consciousness
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 from both parties, and it is monstrous to use force to compel a relationship. If we applied this logic to political relationships, we would immediately conclude that unilateral secession is a sacred right. But no one is ready to bite that bullet.
https://unifixion.substack.com/p/the-anomalous-ethics-of-pol...
Then, it seems naive and problematic to think you can take a personal chunk of territory with you after renouncement. At the very least, I think this is akin to trying to unilaterally drop an easement from a property deed. These territories were committed in perpetuity, not loaned with an expiration or compensation clause.
Acting collectively, it is still just many people deciding to renounce. Why would the territory go with them either? This tension is what makes it a revolutionary act.
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.