Google finds its Philosopher’s stone: AI ethicist Henry Shevlin steps into DeepMind role

 Google DeepMind has created a new “Philosopher” role—and hired one of the world’s leading machine consciousness researchers to fill it. Henry Shevlin, Associate Director at Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, will focus on machine consciousness, human-AI relationships, and AGI readiness starting May. The hire follows Anthropic’s own philosopher-in-residence model and signals a growing industry recognition that the hardest questions about advanced AI may not have engineering answers. Google DeepMind has created a new “Philosopher” role—and hired one of the world’s leading machine consciousness researchers to fill it. Henry Shevlin, Associate Director at Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, will focus on machine consciousness, human-AI relationships, and AGI readiness starting May. The hire follows Anthropic’s own philosopher-in-residence model and signals a growing industry recognition that the hardest questions about advanced AI may not have engineering answers.