# Check out Banjo in the news! | Banjo

- Canonical URL: https://wefunder.com/feed/363926
- Entity ID: wefunder:feed_item:363926
- Published at: 2026-08-05 17:15:25 UTC
- Updated at: 2026-08-05 17:15:34 UTC

## Author
Alyssa Connolly

## Subject
Banjo

## Content
The Washington TimesThe Washington Times reported on how some AI companies are hiring philosophers to help train their AI, featuring Banjo's ethical AI considerations in the story. In 2024, CEO Ken Allen partnered with Duke University philosophy professor and author Dr. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong to contribute to Banjo and incorporate ethical AI into the platform. As Ken says, "I was extremely focused on making sure that AI morality was embedded in Banjo."Read the full article →AI companies paying philosophers $400K? Not so fast, experts say "Philosophers working with AI say the goal is to create ethical safeguards — such as kindness, empathy and respect for human life — that make conversational chatbots more trustworthy in real-world interactions.'Without ethical training, AI is likely to hurt the most vulnerable, increase inequality, and thereby fuel social tensions, especially when AI is applied in criminal justice, medicine, education, and business,' said [Sinnott-Armstrong].”Inside Higher EdBanjo's research on the gap between college students wanting debate — yet holding back from it for a variety of reasons — was featured in Inside Higher Ed.A central tension from the research: although students overwhelmingly see the value of debate (including many who have personally changed their minds on issues because of one), most have witnessed or experienced real social consequences from campus disagreement — so they stay quiet instead.As CEO Ken Allen said: "They believe dialogue is essential to their educational development and to being successful in life. However, too many of them have learned that speaking up costs more than it should. So they hold back, and the silence compounds."Read the full article →Students Want Debate, Yet Tend to Self-Censor