Brendan McCord

Commentary by Brendan McCord

From the commentary rail — every link leaves the site for the original piece.

• 17 July 2026 · Cosmos InstituteRaising Claude, Forgetting UsAnthropic consulted priests and rabbis to form Claude's character. This is what happens to ours.
• 26 June 2026 · Cosmos InstituteGreatness and the MachineHow to avoid the Tocquevillian Singularity
• 19 June 2026 · Cosmos InstituteThe Division of JudgmentAI agents could give strangers thick coordination where prices were thin
• 22 May 2026 · Cosmos Institute“Are you a philosophical zombie driven by Claude?”Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark in conversation with Brendan McCord
• 15 May 2026 · Cosmos InstituteAuthors vs. Characters: The New Class DivideWill AI sort humanity into two kinds of people?
• 15 April 2026 · Cosmos InstituteCan Old Ideas Survive the AI Age?Your questions answered: on philosophy, children, and China
• 3 April 2026 · Cosmos InstituteYou Are Not a FunctionWhy the Race to Stay Useful is a Trap
• 20 February 2026 · Cosmos InstituteBrave New Nudge“Liberal AI” and The Kindest Threat to Freedom
• 16 January 2026 · Cosmos InstituteSame Radio, Different CitizensOn the Economics of Human Formation
• 12 December 2025 · Cosmos InstituteA World UnobservedHumans have always generated knowledge and judged it. That's changing fast.
• 3 October 2025 · Cosmos InstituteThe Artificial SpectatorAdam Smith, AI, and the Outsourcing of Moral Sentiments
• 5 September 2025 · Cosmos InstituteOn Western DynamismAmerica's strength comes from tension, not unity
• 9 August 2025 · Cosmos InstituteLive by the Claude, Die by the ClaudeA high school meme reveals deeper questions about AI deference
• 22 July 2025 · Cosmos InstituteIn Defense of Self-DirectionWhat Tocqueville, Aristotle, and Mill understood about human autonomy
• 16 July 2025 · Cosmos InstituteThe Philosopher-BuilderThe AI age demands a new kind of technologist
• 15 June 2025 · Cosmos InstituteBuild for Freedom, Not ControlThe same choice that faced Benjamin Franklin now faces every AI developer.
• 9 May 2025 · Cosmos InstituteAI vs. the Self-Directed CareerHumboldtian advice for staying autonomous when deferring is easy.
• 2 May 2025 · Cosmos InstituteThe Philosophical Roots of Decentralized AIEveryone talks about decentralization—but how, why, and when does it work?
• 17 September 2024 · Cosmos InstituteThe Machine Stops: Will AI Lead to Freedom or Control?How E.M. Forster's dystopia mirrors our AI-driven crossroads
• 24 July 2024 · Cosmos InstituteTool or TyrantRemarks given by Cosmos Chair Brendan McCord at the "Lyceum Project," a collaboration between Stanford and Oxford hosted at Aristotle's old school
• 4 January 2024 · Cosmos InstituteExistential Pessimism vs. Accelerationism: Why Tech Needs a Rational, Humanistic "Third Way"We need a balanced, enterprising optimism—an ambitious and clear vision for what constitutes the good in technology, coupled with the awareness of its dangers