The Philosopher-Builder

The AI age demands a new kind of technologist

Every builder’s first duty is philosophical: to decide what they should build for.

This duty has largely been forgotten.

Silicon Valley once understood it—Jobs and Wozniak asked what kind of creative life personal computers should enable; ARPANET's pioneers envisioned what kind of connected society networks should foster. They translated their philosophies into code.

But as tech matured from impact into industry, as venture capital transformed from a “machine for manufacturing courage” into a machine for manufacturing unicorns, builders have increasingly outsourced this duty to metrics, markets, and momentum.

In short, technology's success has severed it from philosophy: the inquiry about the human good and how to achieve it.

“What Should I Build For?”

This question cannot be abdicated. The choice is whether we answer it consciously or by chance.

Without philosophical examination, builders inherit their answers from the defaults of their environment. They defer to easy answers: what customers seem to want, the tribal consensus reinforced by algorithmic feeds, the technical frameworks they unconsciously expand into worldviews. Accepting these allows moral questions to be outsourced. How to live can be seen as a computational problem, Bayesianism as a theory of everything, and thermodynamics as destiny. Each framework glosses over reflection on the human good. Technologists rarely ask whether they’re steering us toward futures worth wanting.

But every technical framework embeds a moral one. Optimize for human preference scores, and you’re taking people’s immediate wants as what’s genuinely good for them. Optimize for “utility,” and you assert that all human goods can be reduced to a single currency. These aren't neutral technical choices—they're normative decisions disguised as data-driven methodology.

Moreover, builders who do wrestle with "What should I build for" often face what seem like either/or choices. Academic theorizing vs. tech pragmatism: ponder first principles and never ship, or ship fast and don’t question first principles. Shareholder primacy vs. stakeholder capitalism: serve quarterly numbers and let the market sort out the social good, or submit to ESG scorecards and become an instrument of someone else’s agenda. Existential pessimism vs. accelerationism: technology dooms us or guarantees transcendence.

With AI we're creating our civilization’s new epistemic infrastructure: systems that don't just shape how we think, but can do the thinking for us. These tools will either enhance goods central to human flourishing—e.g., by expanding human autonomy, enabling truth-seeking, and resisting central control—or systematically erode them.

Resting on unexamined defaults or accepting false choices won’t cut it.

Benjamin Franklin, Philosopher-Builder

Benjamin Franklin shows us what becomes possible when builders reject false choices entirely. Rather than choosing between thinking and doing, profit and purpose, or extremes of hope and despair, he fused sustained inquiry with ambitious execution—building institutions that embodied his philosophical convictions.

Franklin was both a hands-on engineer—inventing the lightning rod, bifocals, and the efficient heating stove—and a practicing philosopher, methodically testing his thirteen virtues and leading weekly discussions at his Junto club for collaborative inquiry.

But he was at his best when translating philosophical conviction into practical innovation:

• Enlightenment belief that knowledge should live outside authority: Franklin created America's first subscription library not just to share books, but to break the monopoly that clergy and aristocrats held over learning. By pooling resources, ordinary citizens could access the same texts that shaped elite thinking, turning knowledge from a scarce resource into shared infrastructure.

• Conviction that dissent needs independent channels: Franklin systematically trained and funded printers across the colonies, giving them equipment and exclusive content in exchange for editorial independence. When controversial ideas needed distribution, this network could bypass any single authority's censorship. The result was a decentralized media ecosystem that made the revolutionary pamphlet wars possible.

• Faith in long-term human potential: Franklin structured his philanthropic gifts to compound over centuries, betting that future generations will be wiser stewards than his own—contrasting with the common belief that wisdom peaks in one's own era. He left £2,000 with instructions that it could not be touched for 100 years, then only partially withdrawn after 200. By designing for institutional patience, he turned modest sums into millions for vocational education.

Franklin's approach reveals what distinguishes philosopher-builders from ordinary builders: the intellectual courage to question prevailing assumptions, the moral clarity to build for human flourishing rather than mere optimization, and the pioneering vision to shape the future rather than merely respond to it.

Translating Philosophy to Code

Today’s builders face the 21st century version of Franklin's challenge: translating philosophical conviction into code.

A philosopher-builder starts with explicit moral commitments, constantly examined and refined. For example, they recognize that human autonomy—people's ability to deliberate about their goals and pursue them freely—is essential to what makes achievement meaningful. An AI assistant built with this understanding would enhance users' capacity to reflect and choose rather than just optimizing interaction time. An educational AI would focus on expanding students' capacity to think independently and seek truth, using its ability to rapidly improve test scores as a means to clear hurdles and free up time for deeper inquiry and character development—not as the end itself.

Moral clarity creates market opportunities. Notion thrives by enhancing users' ability to organize their thoughts rather than maximizing time-in-app—its block-based architecture prioritizes user control and flexibility. Substack focuses on helping writers build direct relationships with readers instead of ad-driven revenue—writers own their subscriber lists and can leave the platform. The Bloomberg terminal succeeds because traders pay for decision quality, not dopamine hits—its dense, information-rich interface would fail every modern UX test but excels at supporting rapid, high-stakes decisions.

This approach enables philosopher-builders to create products that are profitable and good by steering into human strength rather than exploiting human weakness.

Our Challenge

Every builder's first duty is philosophical: to decide what they are building for, in the deepest sense. Abdication works when designing a sign-up flow, but not when shaping the structure of human thought. Eventually the stakes force the philosophical question.

Franklin faced his moment; he built institutions that embodied his deepest convictions about human flourishing. Today we confront the same challenge—AI has opened a new continent, and like Franklin in the New World, philosopher-builders will determine what kind of civilization takes root there.

We must seize our moment. We must orient our actions towards well-considered principles, constantly examined and refined. We must build to enhance vital human capacities rather than exploit human weaknesses. We must support open inquiry and create places where deep questioning and practical building can occur in concert. We must create businesses that are profitable and good.

This is how the best minds of our generation will ensure AI serves human flourishing.

What will you build for?

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Cosmos Institute is the academy for philosopher-builders. Cosmos Holdings helps philosopher-builders create companies that matter.