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In our November “how can we help you?” thread, a reader writes:
Students are asking to know where to study philosophy/ethics of AI. Since it’s such a brand new field, and there’s no LeiterTM Rankings or any guide I can find, do people know which grad programs have faculty who are specializing in AI, and/or which programs are best preparing their grad students working on AI for the academic/alt-ac market?
Good question! Any tips from readers?
I know that ANU Philosophy has an AI project: Machine Intelligence and Normative Theory (MINT). Not sure when/whether they will call for a further round of phd students though.
I think Lazar is leaving ANU, though, for Johns Hopkins. This is probably relevant to thinking about ANU for this purpose. https://hub.jhu.edu/experts/profiles/seth-lazar-expert/
I hear lots of great things about David Danks, both as to his research and as to his work with graduate students, https://mds.ucsd.edu/program/faculty-staff/faculty/danks.html
I second this. David is fantastic to work with (from personal experience)! But it may be worth noting that he is moving to the University of Virginia this Spring.
Lots of people in Europe are getting big grants to hire postdocs and PhDs on topics in AI and philosophy. So, keep an eye out for these calls on the main list serves … i.e. HOPOS.
In northern Europe PhDs are paid a salary (a good salary). But you must work on the project and you must have proven interests in and skills relevant to the topic.
ANU’s reputation for phil AI is mostly based on Seth Lazar’s lab there, who (rumor has it, at least) is heading to Hopkins next year. If I were a PhD student wanting to work with him, I would reach out before applying there.
I think right now most phil AI grad students identify a person they want to work with (like Danks at UCSD mentioned above, Shannon Vallor at Edinburgh, or Colin Allen at UCSB) and apply to those places specifically to work with them. In terms of schools that have multiple philosophers of AI on faculty, the two that come to mind in the US are Northeastern (though they don’t take PhDs) and Purdue (though that’s a very recent thing, and so far there doesn’t seem to be any grad students on their website who say they work on phil AI).
Long story short, things are pretty rough and ready for PhDs this area.
Something that might worth considering, when looking at different (philosophy) PhD programs, is how easy it would be to collaborate with people in computer science, etc., at the relevant institution. For example, take Berkeley: there are a few philosophy faculty doing AI there these days. But Berkeley also has the Center for Human-compatible AI (CHAI), stocked with world class AI researchers. Moreover, they seem pretty open to collaborating with philosophers (at least if my interactions are anything to go on).
My recommendation, for what it’s worth, would be to go to a program that’s very strong in applied ethics, even if it has nobody working on AI stuff. Nobody knows what the market will look like in ten years, but I expect that much of the demand for AI stuff will have been sated now and in the year to come. But applied ethics will always stand you in good stead, and there’s no reason you can’t write your dissertation on AI stuff if you want to. Solid applied ethics supervision will be good enough.
I just posted about this on Blue Sky the other day, and in addition to my own suggestions, here were the ones mentioned:
US:
– Stanford
– Harvard
– MIT
– Purdue
– Florida
– Georgia
– Kansas
– Carnegie Mellon
– Michigan
– Wisconsin
Canada/Europe/UK
– York
– Oxford
– Twente
– Exeter
– LMU
– UBC
– LSE
– University of Hong Kong
– Lingnan
– Cambridge
– Edinburgh
– Durham
All relevant caveats to the list, of course; but maybe this is helpful as a starting place?
Kind of funny to see HKU and Lingnan listed under “Canada/Europe/UK”, but yes I think people should take them seriously. HKU in particular has a nice interdisciplinary thing going on. They also have multiple philosophers working on the area, so you’re not at risk of one person leaving and putting your career prospects at risk.
Stanford makes sense in theory, but not in practice. I would say it retains a commitment to “core” analytic philosophy, and that makes any applied stuff – including AI – seem “lesser”. Certainly few if any of the faculty could claim AI as a *primary* interest. Same goes, I would think, for like Harvard
sorry, yeah–good catch. that was clearly an oversight on my part!
I also want to say a quick word about University of Kansas. There’s a strong tradition of work in AI ethics here, with real integration between philosophy, computer science, and the social and behavioral sciences through Symons’ Center for Cyber-Social Dynamics. The Center creates a supportive and collaborative environment for graduate students, and there’s a solid track record of placement in R1 universities, government, and industry. It’s a welcoming and intellectually serious place to do work at the intersection of AI ethics and philosophy, with a culture that’s both collaborative and relaxed.
Georgetown has one philosopher working on AI ethics, another working on AI agency, and several others working on related topics (philosophy of science, epistemology, mind/cog sci, language, aesthetics, etc.) It also has a strengths in applied philosophy that overlaps with AI ethics issues, such as bioethics, disability studies, and philosophy of race. There is also the Georgetown Center for Digital Ethics, which has excellent faculty from CS, STS, Communications, Law, Linguistics, and other fields. Our placement record is quite good, comparatively, especially for applied ethics positions.
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