Expert Comment: What should we do about chatbots?

Published on December 5, 2025

Professor Edward Harcourt, Director of the Institute for Ethics in AI (Interim) and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford, reflects on what our relationships with chatbots reveal about what is distinctively human. He argues that we must educate users to see these systems not as new members of the human community, but as tools that risk reducing both therapy and relationships to one-dimensional, instrumental exchanges.
Continue reading on website
Other news

Expert Comment: National Emergency Briefing- Reforming UK food systems isn’t just imperative, it’s an opportunity

December 4, 2025
Professor Paul Behrens, from the Oxford Martin School, was one of nine experts invited to deliver evidence at the UK’s first-ever National Emergency Briefing on the climate and nature crises, held last week. Before an audience of over a thousand MPs, senior civil servants, industry bosses, and civic leaders, he outlined the urgent need to reform the UK food system – and the diverse benefits this w

Blinded by love: some male pheasants restrict their vision in a bid to impress females

December 5, 2025
A new study involving researchers from Oxford University’s Department of Biology has found that the exaggerated feather ornaments on the heads of male Chrysolophus pheasants restricts their field of view. The findings have been published in Biology Letters.