Philosophy has long been the punchline to jokes about unemployable majors. Now, philosophers may be getting the last laugh as frontier artificial intelligence (AI) firms increasingly are shelling out eye-watering salaries for their help in tackling some of the technology’s thorniest questions.

Many philosophers welcome the growing demand – which extends beyond AI as industry seeks philosophical guidance on issues ranging from climate change to misinformation. But some argue the discipline’s norms have failed to keep pace. Unlike most scientific disciplines, for example, philosophy journals rarely require authors to disclose potential conflicts of interest such as industry ties.

That’s why an open letter released on 6 July, 2026, calls on the field’s journals to begin to mandate such disclosures. Authors should be required to report any industry funding, paid employment or consulting deals, personal investments, and personal relationships with employees of relevant companies, states the letter, which has so far gained more than 200 signatories – among them luminaries such as Harvard University’s Naomi Oreskes.
 

Source https://www.science.org/content/article/philosophers-call-their-journals-require-conflict-interest-disclosures

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