Discussion summary
The discussion covers the value of philosophy degrees, AI's impact on jobs, and access to paywalled content. Participants share personal experiences, concerns about automation, and methods to bypass paywalls.
What the discussion says
- Philosophy degrees provide valuable teaching and insight.
- AI and automation threaten traditional roles in various industries.
- Paywalls can sometimes be bypassed using archive links.
“It was really just the luck of the draw for me ending up in the undergrad program.”
“When the AI bubble cools these roles will be eliminated faster than you can blink.”
Comments
Hacker News
David Chalmers has been doing this for a long time. The fun thing about successful philosophers is it is a very small club and given their nature a lot of them have kind of humorous beef with each other. To make a name for yourself you often have to find a credible target whose intelligence you can insult. This sort of philosophical rivalry is a common historical occurrence as well, and common to the nature of philosophy itself. As such, it feels wrong to mention Chalmers without mentioning some of his famous detractors.
Personally, I miss when Dennett was around to tell Chalmers he was being annoying. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/daniel-dennett...
Hilarious that the article is framed as a humanities vs sciences thing even though the caliber of philosophers who can get these jobs at labs are the top 0.1% in their field, and wouldn't have trouble finding a job elsewhere, whereas you could get a good-paying job as an engineer at a relatively lower percentile.
"the demand for philosophers with A.I. training is, if anything, outstripping the supply right now. It’s an area I encourage students to go into"...
There's about 20 philosophers employed by AI labs worldwide, vs 1000s of software engineers, product managers, designers, etc. There's probably more economists working in these labs than philosophers...
by jipl104
In summary, AI has tricked a bunch of philosophy majors into not only thinking it's more than linear algebra but changing their entire life trajectories because of their confusion. AI seems to be a very alluring tar pit for the non-technical. The sad part is how this negative externality of AI is being actively encouraged for political ends.
by cgyvbunji
I've spent a surprising amount of time reading philosophy of language, and it's probably done more for my AI prompting than most of the "prompt engineering" articles I've read.
Speech Act Theory, Austin's How to Do Things with Words, and Searle's work changed how I think about prompts. Instead of asking, "What words should I use?", I ask, "What action am I trying to perform?" Is this a request? A commitment? A declaration? An instruction? It turns out LLMs respond differently when you think in terms of acts instead of sentences. With AI able to hallucinate context, facts, intent, and answers, keeping AI on track is much like herding cats.
I've been borrowing those ideas for prompts, reusable skills, and even governance. The side effect of making me look smarter than I really am.
I even ended up writing an article about baseball umpires through the lens of Speech Act Theory: https://pitcherlist.com/umpires-dont-make-calls-they-make-hi.... Baseball, as usual, turns out to be an excellent way to explain philosophy. Or philosophy is an excellent way to explain baseball. I'm currently working on a update, since the ABS challenge system helps improve my position.
My suspicion is philosophy has a lot more to offer AI than ethics alone. Philosophy of language seems like an obvious fit, but epistemology ("what does it mean to know?") and philosophy of mind also seem increasingly practical once you're building systems instead of just chatting with them.
Maybe the shortage isn't philosophy majors. Maybe it's people who can translate philosophy into engineering without making everyone read Kant first.
Heavens, that got wordy, sorry about that.
by mkovach
I studied analytic philosophy, which is basically an education in how to clarify your thoughts, say what you mean in precise terms, and make clear arguments. IMO there is no better preparation for any sort of writing-and-thinking job than studying analytic philosophy, although of course I am biased.
Not sure I’d recommend doing only a philosophy degree, but I highly recommend pairing it with something else more employable. CS and Philosophy seems like the best pairing for the direction tech is going.
by keiferski
This article seems high on vibes, low on metrics.
> While a plain-vanilla philosophy degree remains as hard to monetize as ever, David Chalmers, a prominent philosopher of consciousness at N.Y.U., observes: “I think the demand for philosophers with A.I. training is, if anything, outstripping the supply right now. It’s an area I encourage students to go into. I think these issues with A.I. will be front and center for a good while.”
But wait, there's this:
> Beyond nonprofits like Eleos, most of the hiring has been concentrated at DeepMind and Anthropic, each of which employs at least a half-dozen philosophers.
So, between 6 and 12 each?
by em500
I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program.
I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil.
It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed for a human being to study a hyper-niche subject for 4-8 years for a PHD dissertation, it will probably end up being one of the only remaining degrees left.
Academia may be going back to its roots; Philosophy was the first and will be the last academic subject. Once capital accumulation through job training stops being the focus of academics, it can go back to being what it once was. University was never meant to be a training-ground for jobs, it was meant to be a place to seek truth and knowledge.
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- Hacker News
- David Chalmers has been doing this for a long time. The fun thing about successful philosophers is it is a very small club and given their nature a lot of them have kind of humorous beef with each other. To make a name for yourself you often have to find a credible target whose intelligence you can insult. This sort of philosophical rivalry is a common historical occurrence as well, and common to the nature of philosophy itself. As such, it feels wrong to mention Chalmers without mentioning some of his famous detractors.
Personally, I miss when Dennett was around to tell Chalmers he was being annoying. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/daniel-dennett...
- Hilarious that the article is framed as a humanities vs sciences thing even though the caliber of philosophers who can get these jobs at labs are the top 0.1% in their field, and wouldn't have trouble finding a job elsewhere, whereas you could get a good-paying job as an engineer at a relatively lower percentile.
- "the demand for philosophers with A.I. training is, if anything, outstripping the supply right now. It’s an area I encourage students to go into"...
There's about 20 philosophers employed by AI labs worldwide, vs 1000s of software engineers, product managers, designers, etc. There's probably more economists working in these labs than philosophers...
by jipl104 - In summary, AI has tricked a bunch of philosophy majors into not only thinking it's more than linear algebra but changing their entire life trajectories because of their confusion. AI seems to be a very alluring tar pit for the non-technical. The sad part is how this negative externality of AI is being actively encouraged for political ends.by cgyvbunji
- I've spent a surprising amount of time reading philosophy of language, and it's probably done more for my AI prompting than most of the "prompt engineering" articles I've read.
Speech Act Theory, Austin's How to Do Things with Words, and Searle's work changed how I think about prompts. Instead of asking, "What words should I use?", I ask, "What action am I trying to perform?" Is this a request? A commitment? A declaration? An instruction? It turns out LLMs respond differently when you think in terms of acts instead of sentences. With AI able to hallucinate context, facts, intent, and answers, keeping AI on track is much like herding cats.
I've been borrowing those ideas for prompts, reusable skills, and even governance. The side effect of making me look smarter than I really am.
I even ended up writing an article about baseball umpires through the lens of Speech Act Theory: https://pitcherlist.com/umpires-dont-make-calls-they-make-hi.... Baseball, as usual, turns out to be an excellent way to explain philosophy. Or philosophy is an excellent way to explain baseball. I'm currently working on a update, since the ABS challenge system helps improve my position.
My suspicion is philosophy has a lot more to offer AI than ethics alone. Philosophy of language seems like an obvious fit, but epistemology ("what does it mean to know?") and philosophy of mind also seem increasingly practical once you're building systems instead of just chatting with them.
Maybe the shortage isn't philosophy majors. Maybe it's people who can translate philosophy into engineering without making everyone read Kant first.
Heavens, that got wordy, sorry about that.
by mkovach - I studied analytic philosophy, which is basically an education in how to clarify your thoughts, say what you mean in precise terms, and make clear arguments. IMO there is no better preparation for any sort of writing-and-thinking job than studying analytic philosophy, although of course I am biased.
Not sure I’d recommend doing only a philosophy degree, but I highly recommend pairing it with something else more employable. CS and Philosophy seems like the best pairing for the direction tech is going.
by keiferski - This article seems high on vibes, low on metrics.
> While a plain-vanilla philosophy degree remains as hard to monetize as ever, David Chalmers, a prominent philosopher of consciousness at N.Y.U., observes: “I think the demand for philosophers with A.I. training is, if anything, outstripping the supply right now. It’s an area I encourage students to go into. I think these issues with A.I. will be front and center for a good while.”
But wait, there's this:
> Beyond nonprofits like Eleos, most of the hiring has been concentrated at DeepMind and Anthropic, each of which employs at least a half-dozen philosophers.
So, between 6 and 12 each?
by em500 - I have an undergrad in Philosophy. Our required math classes were formal logic, which we shared with the comp sci. majors. Those classes basically taught me how to program.
I am now a senior engineer at a F500 and I just have a BA in Phil.
It is a highly underrated degree, and going forward with knowledge specialization becoming unnecessary, and eventually unfeasible due to the triviality of AI making it not needed for a human being to study a hyper-niche subject for 4-8 years for a PHD dissertation, it will probably end up being one of the only remaining degrees left.
Academia may be going back to its roots; Philosophy was the first and will be the last academic subject. Once capital accumulation through job training stops being the focus of academics, it can go back to being what it once was. University was never meant to be a training-ground for jobs, it was meant to be a place to seek truth and knowledge.