Artificial intelligence is threatening job prospects for many people. But not, it seems, students of philosophy.

Figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York earlier this year showed American philosophy graduates are more likely to be employed than their peers who studied computer science. It prompted The Economist magazine to suggest coders picked the wrong career since “there seems to be no shortage of work for philosophers of AI”.

The cause of the boom is twofold. AI companies are trying to train their chatbots to weed out hallucinations or missteps in reasoning – and who better to teach them than experts in logic. AI companies are also trying to train their products to think, or act, ethically – a pressing need as AI gains power.

But can philosophy make AI ethical?

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No, it cannot, “in the same way philosophy cannot make anyone ethical”, says Oisín Keohane, a lecturer in philosophy at the University of Dundee.

“You can teach philosophy to anyone and they may still grow up to be a monster; and monsters, as a rule, are not swayed by arguments. That isn’t a special failure of the discipline. It is what moral education........

© The Irish Times