World

8.3 billion synthetic personas: can MatrAIx simulate humanity?

A study led from Harvard and MIT and written by ninety-three researchers claims to have built a profile for every inhabitant of the planet, against which artificial intelligence systems can be tested. The technical claim is strong; the philosophical question is larger still.

Philosophy of technology takes centre stage: a handbook maps the field

The Oxford handbook edited by Shannon Vallor shows that the philosophy of technology is no longer a sideline. Running from Heidegger and Ellul to Don Ihde's postphenomenology and the ethics of algorithms, it draws the map of a discipline that has come of age.

The argument over the moral status of AI moves into the philosophy journals

A paper in Philosophical Studies asks whether an artificial superintelligence might hold a moral status higher than our own. The division beneath the field is coming into focus: does consciousness depend on biological structure, or on function?

Scott Shapiro: what happens to legitimacy when law becomes code?

The Yale philosopher of law argues that the real question artificial intelligence raises for law is not efficiency but power. Even when rule-based systems give the right answer, 'legal reasoning' becomes an appeal to authority once the reasoning can no longer be followed by a human.

Scott J. Shapiro

A survey of working conditions in philosophy departments

Announced on Daily Nous, the survey aims to give academics comparable data, because reliable information about conditions in different countries and universities is hard to come by when applying for graduate study or a post.

Timothy Williamson is at Yale this year; Fudan is holding a congress on his work

Oxford's emeritus Wykeham Professor of Logic is a visiting professor at Yale in 2026. A congress titled 'Williamson Encountering Chinese Philosophy' takes place in Shanghai in November.

Timothy Williamson

New York Times: 'The revenge of the philosophy major'

The paper's July piece examined how philosophy, long dismissed as the subject that leads nowhere, has regained standing in the job market.

First open-access journal for mathematical philosophy founded

The Journal of Mathematical Philosophy, published by the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy at LMU, has begun accepting submissions on a 'diamond' open-access model that charges neither authors nor readers.

Burnt Herculaneum papyri read with AI: lost texts of Philodemus come to light

The scrolls carbonised by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 have been read without being opened, using X-ray imaging and artificial intelligence. Some 70 columns of 'On Vices' by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus have been deciphered.