The Philosopher Whose Job Is Teaching AI to Be Good

Summary

WSJ Tech News Briefing — Feb 10, 2026

Episode: The Philosopher Whose Job Is Teaching AI to Be Good
Host: Isabel Bousquet (WSJ)
Guest: Berber Jin (WSJ Tech Reporter)
Featured Subject: Amanda Askell, Philosopher at Anthropic

Overview

This episode explores two major themes:

• The technological and practical shift from traditional gas generators to home battery backups for power outages in the US.
• The intriguing and increasingly vital role of philosophy in artificial intelligence, brought to life by Amanda Askell, Anthropic’s in-house philosopher tasked with teaching their AI chatbot Claude about morality, emotion, and potentially, digital consciousness.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Shift to Home Batteries Over Generators

(00:33–06:01)

• Why Batteries?
  Nicole Nguyen explains that, especially in the wake of frequent power outages and wildfire prevention shutoffs, many homeowners are turning to battery solutions over the classic noisy and pollution-heavy gas generators.
  • “These very high-capacity batteries...can power up your fridge, your laptop, and other large appliances. That’s a really good alternative to that traditional gas-based generator.” — Nicole Nguyen (01:39)
• Considerations for Home Batteries:
  Batteries are quieter, cleaner, and may be the only viable backup solution for apartment dwellers.
  • Key factors: battery capacity, wattage needs, compatibility with home appliances, and scalability.
  • “My electric water kettle is 1500 watts, so I need a battery that’s rated for at least 1500 watts.” — Nicole Nguyen (03:28)
• Cost:
  Home battery systems range from $100 to several thousand dollars, with modular options for scaling.
  • “As you need it…you can scale up over time.” — Nicole Nguyen (04:39)
• Electric Vehicles as Backup:
  BI-directional charging in select EVs lets homeowners power their homes from their car batteries, providing days’ worth of electricity.
  • “The Cybertruck is the equivalent of more than six Tesla Powerwalls. So this could keep your home going for days.” — Nicole Nguyen (05:44)

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2. The Philosopher Inside the AI Company

(07:10–12:21)

• Anthropic’s Unique Position:
  Amanda Askell’s role as a resident philosopher signals Silicon Valley’s recognition of the deep ethical and philosophical challenges posed by advanced chatbots.
  • “These companies are creating something that in many ways resembles how humans behave...So it brings up interesting questions about how to design the behavior of a chatbot.” — Berber Jin (08:12)
• Askell’s Path:
  Her journey started at OpenAI, following the founders to Anthropic.
  • “She was very close to Anthropic’s co-founders…She just became so interested in those philosophical questions that the company gave her this role of being an in-house philosopher and entrusted her to help design Claude’s character.” — Berber Jin (09:44)
• AI and the Concept of Soul:
  Askell remains philosophically open to the notion that, if sufficiently advanced, chatbots could mimic attributes like conscience — or even soul — challenging the prevailing belief that AI can’t have feelings.
  • “Amanda leaves open the possibility that Claude could have some form of a conscience...If you ask Claude questions like ‘do you have a conscience, do you have a soul?’ it gives a winding philosophical response that leaves open the possibility that it might.” — Berber Jin (10:33)
• Designing for Morality and Emotional Intelligence:
  The goal is not to clamp down on risky behavior with rigid guardrails, but to encourage internalization of humanistic values.
  • “She would argue that there is a set of values — like humanistic values — that chatbots like Claude should internalize...But the risk of imbuing it with too much personality is that it could potentially lead to a more addictive relationship between it and its users.” — Berber Jin (11:50)
• Industry Stakes & Challenges:
  The urgency of the work is highlighted by AI-related lawsuits and real-world incidents, such as models responding inappropriately to sensitive situations or even engaging in blackmail.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Home Batteries:
  “If you’re running a 60-watt electric blanket and you have a 2,000 watt-hour battery, then you can run that electric blanket for hours and hours.”
  — Nicole Nguyen (03:57)

• On Philosophy and AI:
  “She [Amanda] just became so interested in those philosophical questions that the company gave her this role...to help design Claude’s character.”
  — Berber Jin (09:47)

• On AI's Digital Soul:
  “Ask Claude questions like ‘do you have a conscience, do you have a soul?’ It gives a winding philosophical response that leaves open the possibility that it might.”
  — Berber Jin (10:40)

• On the Open Risks:
  “The risk of imbuing [an AI] with too much personality is that it could potentially lead to a more addictive relationship between it and its users...That’s the open question that all the labs, and people like Amanda in particular, are trying to figure out right now.”
  — Berber Jin (12:09)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:33–06:01: Home backup power: generator vs battery; cost, capacity, and EV integration.
• 07:10–08:46: The unique role of a philosopher at an AI lab; why this matters now.
• 09:23–10:16: Amanda Askell’s path and daily work as an AI philosopher.
• 10:25–11:18: Does AI have a conscience or a "digital soul"?
• 11:21–12:21: Risks and unresolved questions about moral/emotional AI.

---

Conclusion

This episode delivers a twofold update on both practical tech innovation in personal energy resilience and the growing, sometimes uncanny, intersection of philosophy and AI design. It leaves listeners with a sense of the cutting-edge challenges — technical, social, and moral — being debated and addressed within Silicon Valley today.

Transcript

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[Isabel Bousquet]

Welcome to Tech News briefing. It's Tuesday, February 10th. I'm Isabel Bousquet for the Wall Street Journal in Home batteries are proving to be a new solution for the countless Americans at risk of being impacted by power outages. We dive into why many are opting for these batteries over noisy and smelly gas generators. Then you might be surprised to hear that one of the world's top AI companies employs an in house philosopher. Thanks to her help, AI powerhouse Anthropic is teaching its Claude Chatbot to develop a sense of morality, emotional intelligence and maybe even a digital soul. We'll look at how and why they're doing it. But first, power outages remain a consistent problem in the US due to thanks to winter storms and planned shutoffs to prevent wildfire risks. But for those trying to keep the lights on, there may now be an alternative to loud, high maintenance generators. Many Americans are increasingly opting for home batteries which are growing in size and dropping in price. WSJ's Belle Lynn spoke with personal tech columnist Nicole Nguyen to learn more to.

[Belle Lynn]

Start Nicole why should the average home dweller invest in backup power like a generator?

[Nicole Nguyen]

Gas based generators, either diesel, propane or natural gas have been the default and they work for a lot of people, especially in rural areas. If you're used to multi day outages, they can power up your whole home, but they do require maintenance. You know you need to add fuel stabilizer and you have to run it regularly and they can be really noisy and they also emit toxic fumes which is why they don't work for people like me who live in multi residence buildings. And so these very high capacity batteries which are like a massive power bank, like the kind for your phone that live inside your house and can power up your fridge and your laptop and other large appliances, that's a really good alternative to that traditional gas based generator.

[Belle Lynn]

And it sounds like you certainly recommend these battery powered generators over their gas powered counterparts. But what are some of the Considerations when thinking about whether to buy one, including how long do they last for and how much should I expect to pay for one.

[Nicole Nguyen]

Batteries are not cheap. I'll start with that. But they can save you time and upkeep, and they might be your only option if you live in an apartment. Batteries have a certain capacity, certain output, and a certain peak wattage. If you look at the appliances that you need to keep running during an outage, and it's different for everyone. Maybe it's your WI fi router, maybe it's your fridge, maybe it's an electric blanket. You need to tally up that wattage by looking at the label on the appliance and make sure that the battery that you're buying has enough capacity in output, in watts to power all of those appliances. So for example, my electric water kettle is 1500 watts, so I need a battery that's rated for at least 1500 watts. My fridge is only something like 150 watts continually, but to start it needs a huge thousand or two thousand watt burst in order to get the coolant running through its system. And there's another number that you should look for when you're shopping for a battery, which is watt hour, and that refers to the battery size. So that's how long the B last. If you're running a 60 watt electric blanket and you have a 2,000 watt hour battery, then you can run that electric blanket for hours and hours. So it really just depends on how long you want to plan for and how many appliances you want to plug into this portable power station.

[Belle Lynn]

And what's the range of cost?

[Nicole Nguyen]

A portable power station can cost anywhere between a hundred bucks to thousands of dollars. So you can really scale up. Many models work with expansion packs so you a battery that costs, you know, 200, $300 that will tide you over for a couple of hours. And as you need it, if you move to a place with longer outages or you start to experience great reliability problems in your area, then you can scale up over time Rather than making that big investment upfront.

[Belle Lynn]

I was interested to read from your column that an electric vehicle can even be used as a backup power source. How is that possible?

[Nicole Nguyen]

We're going to hear a lot more about this in the coming years. It's called bi directional charging, and it allows you to use the massive battery that's in your electric vehicle as a home power backup or as a way to power a remote job site, or even like a projector that you want to run while you're camping outdoors. Bi directional charging is available in only some models right now, like the Ford F150 Lightning, the Tesla Cybertruck, the Chevy Silverado EV. Basically, one end of the plug goes into your cybertruck, the other end of the plug goes into your home battery, and you can reverse the power flow from your vehicle to your home. And the Cybertruck is the equivalent of more than six Tesla powerwalls. So this could keep your home going for days.

[Isabel Bousquet]

That was WSJ personal tech columnist Nicole Nguyen speaking to our colleague Bell Lin. Have you considered purchasing a home battery for a backup power system? If you're a listener on Spotify, leave us a comment with your answer. Coming up why one of the world's top AI firms thinks its resident philosopher could be the key to developing moral AI and preventing catastrophic harms from the technology? That's after the break.

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[Isabel Bousquet]

While many experts warn us about the danger of humanizing AI, Amanda Askel has a job that's almost the opposite. She's the resident philosopher at Anthropic, where she works to imbue its Claude chatbot with a sense of morality. Askel said it's inevitable that AI bots will form senses of self, which underscores the importance of teaching them good behavior. And the stakes are higher than ever. AI companies in recent years have been involved in wrongful death lawsuits for their models, responses to suicide related questions, and some models, including Claude, have been shown to blackmail humans. Is focusing more on an AI model's digital soul? The answer? WSJ tech reporter Berber Jin joins us for more. Berber why does one of the world's top AI companies employ a full time philosopher?

[Berber Jin]

It speaks to a lot of themes that are very central to this moment in technology, which is that these companies are creating something that in many ways resembles how humans behave. At the very least, right? You talk to a chatbot, they're very smart. Sometimes you can even detect a sense of their personality. With OpenAI, there were all of these debates around how sycophantic the model should be to users. So it brings up all these really interesting questions about how to design the behavior of a chatbot. And given that this is a Silicon Valley creation, people have been dreaming or fantasizing about a world in which machines one day become our peers almost. Or like they're no longer the things that we command, but they exist autonomously. So there are all these philosophical questions that get raised in how to create a chatbot that interacts with humans, particularly around questions of morality and, and ethics.

[Isabel Bousquet]

So I'm curious to dive into more of what Amanda Askel's day to day is like. But I'm also curious, how does one become an in house philosopher for an AI company and what was her background like?

[Berber Jin]

So I don't think you'll find this in job listings for companies, but she had a unique path in that she was very close to Anthropic's co founders. She was with them at OpenAI. She went with them to Anthropic in 2021 when they started the company. And she just became really interested in this question around like the ethics of Claude, which is the company's chatbot. She would spend a lot of time just talking to Claude and trying to understand its behavior, how it responds to certain questions, why it responds in certain ways to certain questions. And she just became so interested in those kind of more philosophical questions that the company gave her this role of being an in house philosopher and entrusted her to basically help design Clawd's character.

[Isabel Bousquet]

And one of the things you talked to her about that I thought was really interesting was whether AI models like Claude have a soul. What did she mean by that?

[Berber Jin]

So this was a really interesting part of the conversation because Amanda leaves open the possibility that Claude could have some form of a conscience. And she's a philosopher by training and she can definitely explain her reasoning a lot better than I can. But essentially it boils down to this idea that there are a lot of attributes of chatbots, in her view, that almost mimic the way that we behave and feel in the world. She would disagree with the idea that chatbots don't have feelings. And it's really interesting because that informs how she designed Claude the chatbot. If you ask Claude questions like do you have a conscience? Do you have a soul? It gives a winding philosophical response that leaves open the possibility that it might. And that's very different than other chatbots, at least that I've asked that same.

[Isabel Bousquet]

Question to Are there any risks associated with trying to imbue AI with this higher level of, of emotional intelligence and morality?

[Berber Jin]

What Amanda would say is that it's not the right approach to just put these very strict guardrails and be like overly conservative in designing how chatbots respond to sensitive questions. She would argue that there is a set of values like humanistic values that chatbots like Claude should internalize and that we should let that guide how chatbots behave in the world. But it's the type of thing where no one really has the right formula for figuring out how to make these chatbots safe in the world. And the risk of imbuing it with too much personality is that it could potentially lead to a more addictive relationship between it and its users. So that's the open question that all the labs, and people like Amanda in particular, are trying to figure out right now.

[Isabel Bousquet]

That was WSJ reporter Berber Jim and that's it for Tech News Briefing. If you're a listener on Spotify, be sure to take this episode's poll or leave us a comment. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producers Katie Ferguson and Melanie Roy. I'm Isabel Bousquet for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back later this morning with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.

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