The AI age demands a new kind of technologist: The Philosopher-Builder.

“Avoiding excessive deference to AI is important, but it is ultimately secondary to whether we can renew the virtues, traditions, and institutions required to form good choosers.” @chalmermagne on why the AI deference debates we have are too narrow. blog.cosmos-institute.org/p/…

What is a philosopher-builder? A philosopher-builder is someone who starts from a thesis about human flourishing. Rather than simply looking for a gap in the market, they start out with a vision of the human capacities that are worth developing, what constrains them, and how we can expand them. They reason from first principles about human potential and translate those insights into products or institutions. To understand what a philosopher-builder is, it’s important to grasp what they are not: 1. They are not philosopher-kings. They do not have a blueprint for a society or a theory about how everyone out to live. Some of our most importance capacities are independent judgment, creativity, and the pursuit of knowledge. They seek to expand these capabilities, not prescribe outcomes 2. Open to disconfirming evidence. A strong philosophical starting point is open to rational criticism and has to be tested against reality. Their hypothesis is open to challenge and evidence should not only inform how they build their product, but potentially cause them to revise their underlying thesis. Philosophical seriousness demands intellectual humility. 3. Not a nihilistic iterator. “Make something people want” is a powerful entrepreneurial discipline, but by itself, it cannot establish whether satisfying people’s immediate wants advances human flourishing. You cannot outsource your belief in which ends are worth pursuing to market feedback. The philosopher-builder is someone who combines philosophical conviction with empirical discipline. They have a vision, ambition, and an openness to revision. We believe that AI isn’t a normal technology like the internet or the smartphone that society will simply absorb. Instead, it will create the biggest opening for institution-building since the American founding and philosopher-builders will be more important than ever. If this vision of how to build resonates with you, we want to hear from you.

"Those are counsels of passivity at a time when we need founders. The people in our community are not like that." @Brendan_McCord on @MTSLive, discussing why the AI age needs new Franklins like @luke_drago_, @vincentweisser, and @RuneKvist.

AI agents could make organizations far more productive, but leave people more isolated and less autonomous. We've teamed up with @inherent_labs on an essay prize exploring how organizations can harness AI while strengthening human autonomy and fulfillment. We're thrilled that @lugaricano, @gleech, @divyasiddarth, and Chris Summerfield are joining us as judges. blog.cosmos-institute.org/p/…

"Judgment can be informed without being mechanical: editors are not guessing blind." @_AashishReddy and @lawhsw argue that skills obtained in verifiable domains like math and code carry over to unverifiable domains like writing. blog.cosmos-institute.org/p/…

"No one who advocates for pacing can really tell me what power the pacer would not have." @Brendan_McCord went on @MTSlive to talk about how calls to 'pace the frontier' risk turning into a blank check for government to reach further and further into frontier labs.

Thank you to the researchers, founders, investors, and academics who joined us in Brooklyn for our dinner with ex/ante founder @zweinberg. We discussed whether AI will centralize or decentralize, how it will shape our character, and the importance of democratic renewal.

“The effort is not an inefficient means of obtaining an independently available good, but part of the way the activity acquires meaning in our lives.” @chalmermagne on the danger of shortcuts and why true understanding is hard to acquire. blog.cosmos-institute.org/p/…