PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Jeff Sebo

Jeff Sebo is a philosopher at New York University who studies the sentience, agency and moral status of animals and AI systems. After completing a philosophy PhD at NYU in 2011, he held postdoctoral posts at NYU and the National Institutes of Health and taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before returning to NYU in 2017. In 2024 he became founding director of NYU's Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy and coauthored Taking AI Welfare Seriously, a report arguing that some AI systems may soon be conscious or robustly agentic. His 2025 book The Moral Circle, on the ethical consideration owed to insects, plants and AI systems, made The New Yorker's list of the best books of 2025. He is an associate professor of environmental studies at NYU and advises Eleos AI Research, which investigates AI sentience and well-being.

Born
1983
Works
98
Citations
933
h-index
15

Years link to their sources. Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2005–2011

    Philosophy at TCU and NYU

    He graduates summa cum laude from Texas Christian University in 2005 with a B.A. in philosophy and sociology. In 2011, he completes a philosophy PhD at New York University with a dissertation, The Personal Is Political, supervised by Derek Parfit, John Richardson, Sharon Street and J. David Velleman.

  2. 2011–2017

    Postdocs and the Parr Center

    After his PhD, he holds a postdoctoral fellowship in animal and environmental studies at NYU until 2014, then a one-year bioethics postdoc at the National Institutes of Health. From 2015 to 2017, he is a research assistant professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and associate director of its Parr Center for Ethics.

  3. 2017–2018

    Founding NYU's animal studies program

    He returns to NYU in 2017 as a clinical assistant professor in environmental studies. In 2018, he becomes founding director of NYU's M.A. in animal studies, which he leads until 2024, and publishes Food, Animals and the Environment with Christopher Schlottmann.

  4. 2022–2024

    Mind, Ethics, and Policy at NYU

    NYU launches its Mind, Ethics, and Policy Program in 2022 with him as director, and Oxford University Press publishes his book Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves in 2022. In 2024, NYU opens the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy with endowments from The Navigation Fund and Macroscopic Ventures, and he becomes its founding director. He also becomes director of NYU's Center for Environmental and Animal Protection in 2024.

  5. April 2024

    The New York Declaration

    With Kristin Andrews and Jonathan Birch, he spearheads the New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness, unveiled at an NYU conference in April 2024. In April 2024, he also says current AI systems are very unlikely to be conscious, and that his study of animal minds makes him want to approach that question with caution and humility.

  6. November 2024

    A report on AI welfare

    In November 2024, he coauthors Taking AI Welfare Seriously with Robert Long, Patrick Butlin, Kyle Fish, Jonathan Birch, David Chalmers and four others. The report argues that some AI systems may realistically be conscious or robustly agentic in the near future and urges AI companies to start assessing systems for evidence of both. Vox names him to its Future Perfect 50 list in 2024.

  7. 2025

    The Moral Circle

    W. W. Norton publishes his book The Moral Circle: Who Matters, What Matters, and Why in 2025; it covers the ethical consideration owed to insects, plants and AI systems and argues that beings with the capacity for welfare belong in the moral circle. The book appears on The New Yorker's list of the best books of 2025. Also in 2025, he publishes Insects, AI Systems, and the Future of Legal Personhood in Animal Law Review and coauthors a Trends in Cognitive Sciences paper with Lucius Caviola and Jonathan Birch on how society may respond to AI consciousness.

  8. As of October 2026

    Associate professor at NYU

    He is an associate professor of environmental studies at NYU, where he directs the Center for Mind, Ethics, and Policy and the Center for Environmental and Animal Protection, and his research covers the sentience, agency and moral status of animals and AI systems. In 2026, he coauthors Studying AI Welfare Empirically, a report with Robert Long and others that offers guidance on studying whether AI systems can be welfare subjects. He also advises Eleos AI Research, which investigates AI sentience and well-being.

Career

  1. Since 2011New York UniversityPostdoctoral Fellow in Animal and Environmental Studies, Founding Director
  2. 2015–2017University of North Carolina at Chapel HillResearch Assistant Professor of Philosophy
  3. 2014–2015United States Department of Health and Human ServicesBioethics Postdoctoral Fellow

Education

  1. 2011New York UniversityPhD in Philosophy
  2. 2005Texas Christian UniversityB.A. in Philosophy and Sociology

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. Agency and Moral Status2015 · Journal of Moral Philosophy · 115 citations
  2. What Should We Agree on about the Repugnant Conclusion?2021 · Utilitas · 85 citationsWith Nick Beckstead and Toby Ord
  3. Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves2022 · Oxford University Press eBooks · 82 citations
  4. Moral consideration for AI systems by 20302023 · AI and Ethics · 79 citations
  5. The Moral Problem of Other Minds2018 · The Harvard Review of Philosophy · 72 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

Videos

YouTube videos in which Jeff Sebo speaks or appears, newest first. A model chose them from YouTube search results. List updated 20 October 2026.

  1. Digital minds & how to avoid sleepwalking into a major moral catastrophe | Jeff Sebo (2023)80,000 Hours · 8 July 2024 · 2 h 38 min

Video data from YouTube API Services. By watching you agree to the YouTube Terms of Service. How we use YouTube data.

  1. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes New York University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes New York University. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. Companies supply the most prior-work hires at 7 of the 9 frontier AI labsIncludes New York University. Our estimates of the organizations where 550 people worked directly before joining 9 frontier AI labs across 620 career transitions, comparing the main feeder organizations per lab.
  4. 20% of people at companies who shape AI also hold a university role, led by Google and Stanford UniversityIncludes New York University. We estimate that 539 of the 6,766 people with a known current organization (8%) hold both a university role and a company role, including 20% of people at companies and 13% of people at universities.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Jeff Sebo yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Home - Jeff Sebo jeffsebo.net. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Jeff Sebo - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare | Quanta Magazine quantamagazine.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. [2411.00986] Taking AI Welfare Seriously arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. Can AIs suffer? Big tech and users grapple with one of most unsettling questions of our times | The Guardian theguardian.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Jeff Sebo: The Moral Circle - The Prindle Institute for Ethics prindleinstitute.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. The Best Books of 2025 | The New Yorker newyorker.com. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. Homepage - Center for Mind Ethics, and Policy nonhumanminds.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Research - Center for Mind Ethics, and Policy nonhumanminds.org. Checked 20 October 2026.