Google DeepMind just created a job title that would have sounded like a joke five years ago: Philosopher. The company hired Henry Shevlin, a Cambridge academic known for his work on AI ethics and the philosophy of mind, to fill it. His job will involve thinking about machine consciousness, the moral status of AI systems, and what happens when artificial general intelligence actually shows up.
Shevlin’s tenure is set to begin in May 2026. He’ll keep teaching and researching part-time at the University of Cambridge, specifically with the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence.
Why an AI lab needs a philosopher on payroll
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis has been publicly vocal about wanting philosophical perspectives embedded in AGI development. Not as an afterthought. Not as a PR exercise. As a core function of the research process.
Shevlin’s focus areas, machine consciousness, human-AI interactions, and moral status of artificial agents, are exactly the kind of topics that tend to get dismissed as navel-gazing until they suddenly become urgent.
