We have discussed in many posts here how artificial intelligence (AI) is affecting—and could affect—different aspects of academic philosophy’s research ecosystem.
We have seen AI-written articles published in peer-reviewed journals and AI-written referee reports. As journals attempt to craft policies about AI use, some have been flooded with AI-generated submissions. More and more of philosophy’s institutions are organizing and encouraging research on AI. There are efforts underway to test and measure the capacity of AIs to produce philosophical research. And there is speculation about how the technology will change philosophical research, lead to new research tools, alter our institutions, and affect how credit and evaluation in the profession works. Meanwhile, some PhD students in philosophy are starting to use AI to write dissertations. A lot has happened in the six years since the first Daily Nous post about LLMs six years ago.
How should the profession respond to these and related developments? Is an effective coordinated response desirable? Is it possible?
To help facilitate our taking up of these and related questions, the Marc Sanders Foundation is organizing a conference on them that will bring together journal and academic press editors, scholars, and representatives from some of philosophy’s institutions.
Barry Lam (UC Riverside), associate director of the Sanders Foundation, shared the following information about it:
The Sanders Foundation is hoping the field of academic philosophy will develop a coordinated response to the presence and use of AI-tools in the publication and review of philosophical research. To that end, we are funding a conference at NYU on April 3rd and 4th 2027, bringing together editors of philosophy journals, editors of academic presses that publish a significant amount of philosophy, and philosophers who have developed views about the proper coordinated response to AI. Confirmed attendees include representatives from the APA, editors-in-chief of Journal of Philosophy, Philosophical Review, Mind, Nous, Ergo, Philosophy Compass, Analytic Philosophy, Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, and from university presses, Oxford, Harvard, MIT, and Routledge. There will also be legal scholars who are up-to-date about AI and the laws of copyright. If you are a philosopher who has original data or research that speaks to these questions, and are interested in participating, please fill out the form at the URL. We do not plan to have many talks at the conference, but rather panel discussions and audience Q & As. All invitees will have all expenses paid.
You can find out more about the conference here.
Very timely. Best of luck, Barry and team!