Steve Petersen
Bio
Steve Petersen (full name Stephen David Petersen) is a professor of philosophy at Niagara University in Lewiston, New York, where he has taught since 2006. He holds an A.B. in philosophy and mathematics from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan, and held a Mellon postdoctoral fellowship at Kalamazoo College. His research takes a strongly naturalistic approach to mind and cognition, with current work spanning AI safety, superintelligence risk, value alignment (particularly formal value learning), and a theory of abstraction grounded in algorithmic information theory. He is affiliated with the Future of Life Institute's AI Safety Community Faculty and has received funding from the Survival and Flourishing Fund, the Future of Life Institute, and the Center for AI Safety. Petersen aims to bridge the gap between technical AI safety research and analytic philosophy, contributing philosophical analysis of agency, value learning, and the sentience threshold to the broader x-risk research community.
Links
- Personal Website
- https://stevepetersen.net/
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- Twitter / X
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- LessWrong
- steve-petersen
Grants
from Long-Term Future Fund
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Details
- Last Updated
- Mar 23, 2026, 1:18 AM UTC
- Created
- Mar 20, 2026, 2:58 AM UTC