About

We are living through a period of rapid and consequential technological change. Artificial intelligence systems now shape decisions in healthcare, criminal justice, education, and government — often without adequate ethical scrutiny or meaningful public deliberation. Social media platforms structure the information environment for billions, with profound effects on mental health, political discourse, and social cohesion. And a growing share of digital technology — from immersive gaming to digital mental health interventions and neurotechnology — acts directly on human minds. The decisions being made now about how these technologies are designed and governed will have lasting consequences.

Yet these decisions are overwhelmingly driven by technical and commercial considerations, with philosophical and ethical analysis too often arriving after the fact — if at all. The result is a widening gap between the pace of technological change and our collective capacity to govern it wisely. Closing this gap requires sustained, rigorous engagement from philosophers, ethicists, and humanists who can articulate the values at stake and develop normative frameworks adequate to the challenge.

The Lab exists to fill this need. We bring the depth, precision, and clarity of philosophical inquiry to questions that demand more than purely technical answers. Our work is driven by the conviction that good technology policy requires good philosophy.

The Lab pursues its mission through three pillars:

• Research — Scholarship on the ethics and politics of digital technologies that meets the field's highest standards and is written to be used: rigorous enough to advance the discipline, accessible enough to inform the people making decisions.
• Training — We train undergraduate and graduate fellows to put the tools of philosophy to work wherever they land — in government, industry, or academia.
• Engagement — Our public-facing arm — a blog, a podcast, and public events — builds awareness of the issues we study and of philosophy's role in navigating them. Our policy-oriented arm builds relationships with policymakers, technologists, and civil society to ensure that the governance of digital technologies is informed by sound ethical analysis.