The French Philosopher

Wow, Thanksgiving hits LinkedIn hard in the US: “I’m grateful for my boss” ; “I’m grateful for my dog” ; “I’m grateful for my favorite stapler.” I’m from Paris, and gratitude isn’t something I grew up with. Parisians are so grumpy, we’d probably roll our eyes if you smiled at us. We save our gratitude for true miracles, like getting through a family dinner without someone bringing up immigration while carving the turkey.

See, in France, we don’t just say 'merci'. No, we write books about it. There’s this French anthropologist, Marcel Mauss, who explains that kindness isn’t really kindness: it’s a debt. It’s what he called the 'counter-gift'. You don’t do someone a favor, you open a tab. You think you’re just borrowing some sugar to your neighbor, and next thing you know you’re hosting their dog’s birthday, watering their plants, and pretending to care about their homemade kombucha.

Japanese agree that not every “thank you” moment is pleasant. They actually invented a phrase for when gratitude feels like emotional spam: 'arigata meiwaku'. It’s that uncomfortable vibe when somebody insists on “helping” and you end up having to perform gratitude you didn’t sign up for. It’s like being forced into a gratitude hostage situation.

But hey, tossing a sincere "thank you" is free, it doesn’t add calories, and sometimes it actually pleases people. So go on, throw some thank-yous out there when you really mean it. Just remember: real gratitude doesn’t need a TED Talk or a LinkedIn post. Sometimes it’s just a nod, a laugh, and moving on before things get weird. And if your “gratitude” ends up sounding more like sarcasm? That’s fine too. At least in Paris, they’ll respect you for it.

Are you part of the 45% of high-skilled professionals that would trade some salary for more meaning at work? We’re all searching for that “why” behind what we do. Is it impact, growth, or just not dreading Mondays? If you’re picking a job just for the bragging rights, philosophy is here to call you out and nudge you toward what actually lights you up. 💡

If you’ve ever found yourself staring at your laptop and thinking, “Why am I really doing this?” you’re in good company. I recently sat down with Victoria Feldman for a conversation about how philosophy can help us find meaning at work, and how AI fits into the picture.

📺 Click on the image below to watch the video of the interview. 📺

Let’s start with the classics. Epicurus and the Stoics were obsessed with what makes a good life. Epicurus would say, stop chasing glitter and focus on what truly matters, like friendships. The Stoics? They’d tell you to channel your energy into what you can actually influence, not the endless swirl of things you can’t. Instead of trying to find happiness (which, let’s be honest, is a pretty daunting goal), they suggested we focus on removing pain as much as possible (much more doable, right?). It’s a bit like swapping out your bucket list for a “things I won’t tolerate” list.

When it comes to technology, it’s a mixed bag. Take healthcare: I met a nurse who now uses voice memos and AI to write her reports. What used to take her two hours at the end of every shift is now automated, freeing her up for what really matters: caring for patients. On the flip side, doctors often spend more time typing into computers (mine uses only two fingers 😑) than actually looking patients in the eye. So, AI can either give us back our time for meaningful work or take us away from human relationships. I guess it’s all about how we use it.

So, what’s my takeaway for you? Be clear about your values. Don’t get lost chasing every shiny title or the endless checklist of what a “perfect” job should look like. Focus on the few things that genuinely nourish you. Choose work that aligns with what matters most to you, and try to contribute to something bigger than yourself, something you can be proud of. And remember, questioning everything is not just allowed, it’s encouraged (that's what philosophy is all about).

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Imagine a machine deciding who gets life-saving surgery in a split-second, armed with endless data and razor-sharp logic. No hesitation, no bias, no emotional baggage. Sounds like a dream... or does it? What do you think: does AI make better decisions than humans?

Well, it’s true that there are no existential crises or coffee breaks for our robot friends.

They’re brilliant at optimize outcomes by crunching numbers, without getting tired, distracted, or irrational. Some chatbots actually even give good moral advice (one could say better than some philosophers? 😅). Have a look if you’re curious: petersinger.ai. But here’s the kicker, machines don’t actually “understand” morality. Why is that? Because they don’t feel empathy or anguish when making tough calls. They don’t lose sleep over the weight of their decisions. They don’t consider the messy, lived experiences of the people affected by them.

Take existentialists like Simone de Beauvoir (yes, we’re name-dropping).

They’d argue that morality is rooted in freedom and authenticity, every decision we make defines who we are and carries the weight of our responsibility to others. Machines? They don’t have freedom, they’re programmed. They don’t have authenticity, they’re mimicking patterns. They’re not moral agents, they’re tools.

But here’s where things get spicy.

AI can actually push us to think deeper about our own ethical frameworks. By exposing our biases and presenting alternative perspectives, it can sharpen our reasoning and force us to confront uncomfortable truths. For instance, Amazon’s AI recruiting tool 10 years ago was a fiasco but it helped everyone realize how deep recruiting biases are, and that was definitely a win to make us aware that we had to fight against them.

So maybe the question isn’t whether AI is “better” at morality but whether it challenges us to be better moral thinkers ourselves?

Should we trust AI with big decisions?

Maybe as collaborators, not captains of the ship. Machines might help us see clearer, but the messy beauty of morality, its empathy, its anguish, its humanity, is something only we can bring to the table. Or at least that’s my take… what’s yours?

Using AI to translate animal communication isn’t just a tech challenge. It’s a philosophical one. AI is making serious moves in decoding animal sounds (listen to this podcast episode from The Economist), but here’s the kicker: even if we crack their “language,” would it make sense to us? I'm really not sure we can ever truly understand what animals are saying when their entire experience of the world is so different from ours! How can we figure what it's like to be bats “seeing” with sound. Or birds feeling Earth’s magnetic fields. And what about dolphins living in a 3D underwater soundscape. Don't let me start with how we’re here struggling to swat a fly because it sees us in slow motion.🤦♀️

If AI manages to translate what animals say, it might force us to rethink language, meaning, and our place in nature. Because what does that say about how we treat them? Imagine if we discover they’re saying profound things like, “Hey, don’t overfish my home”?

I'm curious... if you could chat with a dolphin, what’s the first thing you’d ask? Better yet, what do you think they’d roast us for? 😅

Word on the street is Microsoft’s latest quantum breakthrough (see Nature’s article link below) might finally let us crack open the box and see what’s really going on. But here’s the kicker: quantum computing isn’t just about faster tech or breaking encryption. It’s a philosophical mic drop. What if reality isn’t just yes or no? What if it’s yes AND no… or maybe even something else entirely?

See, quantum computers don’t follow the same rules as our everyday classical computers. They thrive in the chaos, living in that weird, paradoxical space where things can be two things at once. It’s like the universe is giving us a hint that we’ve been thinking way too small all the time. Human level thinking will probably always be too small to understand it all. It doesn’t stop us for craving more anyway!

While engineers are out here solving problems we didn’t even think actually had solutions, philosophers might buckle up to be ready for a world where zero and one can coexist. Where truth isn’t fixed but fluid? Where the impossible suddenly feels like it’s just around the corner? Strap in, this isn’t just science anymore. It’s a whole new way of seeing reality!

How could our world react to such a weird perspective to grasp? When we see human beings kill each other for failing to see the world the same way, I’m not overly optimistic about human kind capacity to fully apprehend quantum physics. But maybe it’s fine not to understand how quantum computing works if we can benefit from it. Or is it?