We support technologists who use AI to advance human flourishing. Launched in 2024, we’ve funded over 150 projects, incubated new organisations, and worked with the University of Oxford, the Aspen Institute, and leading AI labs.

Our goal is to cultivate philosopher-builders, people who know what to create, but also why to create in the first place. That might be someone building recommender systems aligned with the person you want to be (instead of the person who just wants easy gratification), producing critical-thinking tools to avoid outsourcing deliberation, or introducing autonomy-preserving solutions for navigating the information environment.

Cosmos’ work is organised around three core themes:

• Human autonomy (the cultivated capacity for self-direction)

• Truth-seeking (the ability to inquire openly and correct our errors)

• Decentralization (systems that resist coercion, capture, and control).

We think these values are particularly important because they form the conditions under which free people can genuinely seek truth, make judgments, form commitments, and build different kinds of lives together.

A philosopher-builder is a technologist who treats the question "what should I build for?" as their first and most important duty, and then translates the answer into products and institutions that instantiate their answer. Rather than outsourcing purpose to metrics, markets, or momentum, they start from well-considered views about the conditions required for human flourishing and our ability to live self-directed lives. Those commitments shape the technology they create.

The archetype is Benjamin Franklin, who combined practical innovation with deep philosophical conviction, building institutions like America's first subscription library and a decentralized printer network that embodied his Enlightenment beliefs about knowledge, dissent, and long-term human potential.

In the AI age, this matters more than ever. Every technical framework embeds a moral one. Optimizing for engagement, preference scores, or "utility" are normative choices disguised as neutral methodology. Philosopher-builders reject false either/or choices (theory vs. pragmatism, profit vs. purpose, doom vs. acceleration) and instead build products that strengthen human capacities like autonomy and independent thought.

The easiest way to stay up-to-date is to subscribe to our Substack. We post weekly essays plus open programs, opportunities, and network updates. If you’re interested in the ideas we explore, reading out Substack is the fastest way to get up to speed and engage with these yourself.

We also often have program applications for fast grants of fellowships which you can find on our website along with open roles.

We keep open expression of interest forms for different things we run, as well as a general role application linked below:

• Philosophy x AI seminars interest form

• Future fast grant and/or fellowship rounds interest form

• General application for a role with Cosmos

We primarily support founders and researchers who are working at the frontier of AI, or building new companies, non-profits or research agendas to ensure AI serves human flourishing. 

As part of our mission, we also try to engage and inform a wider audience interested in these questions, via our writing, recorded media, reading lists, and educational programs.

We are primarily funded by individuals who share our commitments to the principles of a free society and are thinking about how developments in AI interact with this, and how institutions respond or get re-built as a result. We also collect revenue from Substack and donations on Every.

Reach out to info@cosmos-institute.org and we’ll route you to the relevant person on the team!