AI Welfare, Introverted Engineers, & CERN’s New Head

This week’s science bits from SWTG

Researchers Worry About the Mental Health of AI

In a paper that recently appeared on the pre-print server, a group of AI researchers argues that companies whose computers might become consciously aware have a responsibility to invest in “AI welfare.” Among other things, this entails developing policies that will deal with AI’s job attitude “with an appropriate level of moral concern”. According to the newsletter Transformer, Anthropic has already hired its first AI welfare researcher. 

Engineers Likely to be Introverted, Study Confirms

A study out of the University of Edinburgh looked at the personality traits, measured by the Big Five test, of thousands of people across almost 250 professions. Electronic engineers, on average, had the lowest rates of Extraversion and Agreeableness, closely followed by Software Developers. Paper here. Press release here.

CERN’s New Director Believes a Bigger Collider Will Find Dark Matter

CERN’s next director, Mark Thompson. Image: CERN

CERN has selected Mark Thompson as its new head. Thompson, an experimental particle physics professor at Cambridge University, will take over from Fabiola Gianotti in January 2026 (not a typo – progress isn’t the only thing that’s slow in particle physics). According to quotes from AFP, Thompson is in favour of building a larger particle collider because he believes it will help find dark matter. Many particle physicists also thought the LHC would find dark matter, which it did not, and there is no reason to think that a next larger collider would do any better. Press release here.