From Technologist to Philosopher, by Damon Horowitz (Google’s “in-house philosopher”):
❝[…] about a decade ago, I quit my technology job to get a Ph.D. in philosophy. And that was one of the best decisions I ever made.
When I started graduate school, I didn’t have a clue exactly how the humanities investigated the subjects I was interested in. I was not aware that there existed distinct branches of analytic and continental philosophy, which took radically different approaches to exploring thought and language; or that there was a discipline of rhetoric, or hermeneutics, or literary theory, where thinkers explore different aspects of how we create meaning and make sense of our world.
As I learned about those things, I realized just how limited my technologist view of thought and language was. I learned how the quantifiable, individualistic, ahistorical—that is, computational—view I had of cognition failed to account for whole expanses of cognitive experience (including, say, most of Shakespeare). I learned how pragmatist and contextualist perspectives better reflect the diversity and flexibility of our linguistic practices than do formal language models. I learned how to recognize social influences on inquiry itself—to see the inherited methodologies of science, the implicit power relations expressed in writing—and how those shape our knowledge.
Most striking, I learned that there were historical precedents for exactly the sort of logical oversimplifications that characterized my AI work. Indeed, there were even precedents for my motivation in embarking on such work in the first place. I found those precedents in episodes ranging from ancient times—Plato’s fascination with math-like forms as a source of timeless truth—to the 20th century—the Logical Positivists and their quest to create unambiguous language to express sure foundations for all knowledge. They, too, had an uncritical notion of progress; and they, too, struggled in their attempts to formally quantify human concepts that I now see as inextricably bound up with human concerns and practices.
In learning the limits of my technologist worldview, I didn’t just get a few handy ideas about how to build better AI systems. My studies opened up a new outlook on the world. I would unapologetically characterize it as a personal intellectual transformation: a renewed appreciation for the elements of life that are not scientifically understood or technologically engineered.
In other words: I became a humanist.
And having a more humanistic sensibility has made me a much better technologist than I was before. I no longer see the world through the eyes of a machine—through the filter of what we are capable of reducing to its logical foundations. I am more aware of how the products we build shape the culture we are in. I am more attuned to the ethical implications of our decisions. And I no longer assume that machines can solve all of our problems for us. The task of thinking is still ours.❞
A Pun Involving Travel 