Reading List for AI Builders

Philosophical Foundations for Human-Centered AI

This collection explores the philosophical underpinnings needed to build AI systems that enhance rather than replace human intelligence and agency. The documents converge on a critical tension: while AI offers unprecedented capabilities for knowledge synthesis and decision-making, current paradigms risk undermining human autonomy and critical thinking.

Core Themes:

• AI as Provocateur vs. Assistant: Moving beyond the servant/threat dichotomy to position AI as a critical thinking partner that challenges assumptions rather than merely executing tasks
• Philosophy-to-Code Pipeline: Translating philosophical principles about reason, agency, and human flourishing directly into system design and implementation
• Information Overload and Attention: Addressing the fundamental challenge that information production scales exponentially while human cognitive bandwidth remains constant
• Truth-Seeking and Autonomy: Preserving both epistemic integrity and human self-determination in AI-mediated environments

This reading material explores if building beneficial AI requires explicit philosophical grounding—particularly around Mill's principles of free speech, Bush's vision of augmented human intellect, and frameworks that maintain human agency in the loop. This represents a shift from purely technical approaches to one that embeds philosophical commitments about human flourishing directly into code architecture.

This list was heavily inspired by the Cosmos Institute's Reading list: https://blog.cosmos-institute.org/p/philosopherbuilder-summer-reads-2025