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AI Policy & Ethics  ·  Political Messaging  ·  Global Catastrophic Risk  ·  Philosophical Consulting

Michael
Glawson, PhD

Working through the hardest problems in politics, technology, and global risk, with philosophical breadth and technical granularity.

About
Philosopher and consultant with a decade of applied work in ethics, politics, AI, and global risk.
Research
Public writing and scholarship on AI safety, technology governance, and the future of democratic life.
Consulting Services
Strategic counsel for political campaigns, AI professionals, and those carrying the existential weight of global catastrophic risk, with rigor and compassion in equal measure.
Lectures & Invited Talks
Keynote addresses on AI policy, technology ethics, political philosophy, and the hard questions facing public life.
Media
Recent interviews on AI, national security, and the ethics of technology.
Get in Touch
Available for media bookings, consulting engagements, and speaking inquiries.
About

Michael Glawson

Philosopher, consultant, and public speaker. Systematic, grounded ethical guidance for campaigns, organizations, and individuals navigating AI, global catastrophic risk, and the hardest questions in public life.

I am a philosopher of technology and ethics with a decade of experience bringing systematic, grounded philosophical thinking to bear on the hardest problems in politics, technology, and public life. My training spans analytical philosophy, philosophical consultinging, and the tradition of sustained one-on-one ethical guidance: what philosophers since Socrates have called care of the soul: serious, structured attention to what it means to live and act well under conditions of genuine uncertainty and consequence.

I have advised campaigns for state governors, United States Senate seats, and state legislative races on policy and messaging; developed ethics training deployed to C-level executives at Fortune 500 companies through Knowledge City; and lectured at Yale, Vassar, Virginia Tech, and institutions across the United States and Europe.

My current work focuses on the governance, policy, and philosophical dimensions of artificial intelligence and global catastrophic risk, and on the people carrying the existential, psychological, and philosophical burdens that arise from working at this frontier. That weight is real, and it deserves more than a compliance framework or a wellness program. I bring to it the same systematic rigor I apply to everything else, alongside a genuine capacity for the kind of structured, personal philosophical guidance that helps people think and live well in the face of what they are actually facing.

Michael Glawson, PhD
Positions & Affiliations
  • AI Policy Research Fellow, SuccessIf (2026–)
  • Invited Keynote, Yale University Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking
  • Bioethics Lecturer, College of Charleston (2020–22)
  • Visiting Faculty in Philosophy, Georgia State University (2018–20)
  • Instructor of Philosophy, University of South Carolina (2014–20)
Research & Writing

Selected Works

Scholarship and public writing spanning AI safety, technology ethics, political philosophy, and the epistemology of contested empirical questions.

Article
Building Safe AI Is Harder and More Urgent Than Our Leaders Realize — a Philosopher Explains Why
2025
Conference Presentation
LATIS: A New Framework for the Scientifically Tractable Study of Intractable Anomalies
Plenary Session, Society for UAP Studies Annual Conference, Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen, Germany
2025
Article
It's Time to Rethink Some Common Assumptions About UFOs
2023
Book Chapter
Will a Transhuman Future be Good or Bad for Humanity?
Transhumanism and Religion, Palgrave MacMillan
2018
Article
Trigger Warning: Disturbing Datasets in the Classroom
Significance: Magazine of the Royal Statistical Society and American Statistical Association (with Brian Zaharatos)
2018
Encyclopedia Entry
Atheism
The New Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, Palgrave MacMillan (with Brian Zaharatos)
2014
Conference Presentation
NSA Surveillance, and the State's Stake in Science
BiCoDa Research Group Workshop, Universität Bielefeld, Germany (with Ann Johnson)
2013
Consulting

Consulting & Advisory

I work with campaigns, companies, and individuals who are ready to engage these questions seriously, and who want a partner who will tell them the truth.

Politics

Politics has lost its moral center. Not because voters have, but because the people communicating with voters have forgotten how to speak to it. The cynicism, the tribal signaling, the endless search for wedge issues: none of it is inevitable. It is a choice, and a bad one. I help campaigns find the better way: developing the messaging, values framing, and political philosophy that let candidates speak honestly, lead on the hard issues, and win.

Technology & AI

The same is true for organizations navigating the ethics of technology. The hard questions about AI, accountability, and institutional trust cannot be outsourced to legal teams or PR strategy. They require genuine philosophical work, and they require it now, before the decisions are already made. I provide that work: governance frameworks, ethics training, and rigorous thinking partnership that helps organizations get ahead of the hardest problems rather than react to them.

"The hardest problems don't announce themselves as philosophical. They arrive as business decisions, policy choices, or moments of personal crisis. I help people see them clearly, and act accordingly."

Politics
Moral Clarity & Values Messaging
Most campaigns communicate positions. The ones that win the right way communicate convictions. I help candidates find and articulate the ethical core of their platform, in language that is honest, specific, and built to hold up under pressure.
Cross-Partisan Voter Messaging
The voters campaigns need most are not waiting to be activated by sharper partisanship; they are waiting for someone to speak to what they actually care about. I develop messaging rooted in shared values that moves persuadable voters without condescending to them.
Restoring Dignity to Political Communication
Campaigns that treat voters as intelligent moral agents, rather than as targets, build the kind of trust that survives negative press and outlasts a single election. I advise on tone, framing, and the long-term ethics of how a campaign speaks.
AI & Technology Policy
AI and technology policy is the defining frontier of the next decade of American politics. I help campaigns build positions that are credible, accessible, and genuinely informed, so candidates can lead on these issues rather than scramble to respond to them.
Past ClientsStacey Abrams for Governor  ·  Annie Andrews for SC Senate
Catastrophic Risk Professionals
Philosophical Consulting for Consequential Work
The people building AI systems are working at a scale of consequence that has no real precedent. The questions that come with that: about responsibility, complicity, meaning, and the limits of what any individual can control, are not questions HR or a therapist is equipped to answer. I work with AI researchers, engineers, and executives who need a rigorous thinking partner: someone who takes both the technology and the ethics seriously, and can help them navigate what it means to do this work well.
Ethics Under Pressure
When the decisions you face at work carry genuine moral weight: when your product could cause harm, when institutional incentives pull against your values, when you're not sure what the right answer is, having a trained philosopher in your corner is not a luxury. I provide one-on-one counsel and small-group sessions for professionals who need more than a compliance framework.
NoteEngagements are confidential. Inquiries welcome.
Technology & AI
Ethics Training & Curriculum
Ethics training deployed to C-level executives at Fortune 500 companies through Knowledge City. Every engagement is built from scratch for the specific pressures and decisions your organization faces: not off-the-shelf compliance content, but work that actually changes how people think and act.
AI Governance & Policy
Advising organizations on the responsible deployment of AI, including alignment, accountability, transparency, and the governance frameworks that make those commitments credible to employees, regulators, and the public.
Technology Governance Consulting
Helping organizations develop clear internal policies and decision-making emerging technologies, before a crisis, a regulator, or a public controversy forces the question.
Institutional Values & Culture
Organizations that articulate their values clearly, and live by them visibly, build a different kind of trust with employees, clients, and the public. I work with leadership on what those values are, what they require, and how to communicate them credibly.
Past ClientsKnowledge City (Fortune 500 C-suite ethics curriculum)  ·  SuccessIf  ·  Government agencies
Speaking

Lectures & Talks

Available for keynote addresses, invited lectures, and panel discussions on AI policy, technology ethics, political philosophy, and the nature of rigorous inquiry into contested questions.

"Philosophy has never been more urgently needed in public life. I bring that perspective to audiences who are shaping the decisions that matter most."
Current Topics Available
  • The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence: What's Actually at Stake
  • Moral Clarity in Dark Times: A Strategy for Sustaining Liberalism
  • How to Win Without Losing Your Soul: Ethics and Political Communication
  • When the Frameworks Fail: Philosophy for Consequential Decisions
  • The Future of AI Governance: What Leaders Need to Understand Now
"LATIS: A New Framework for the Scientifically Tractable Study of Intractable Anomalies"
Plenary Session · Society for UAP Studies Annual Conference · Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen, Germany
A plenary address presenting a new theoretical framework for applying rigorous scientific methodology to phenomena that resist standard investigative approaches, and what that model reveals about the limits of existing scientific institutions.
2025
"The History, Science, Philosophy, and Future of Profound Scientific Anomalies"
Keynote · Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking · Yale University
A keynote for Yale's center for innovation examining what it means to pursue rigorous inquiry when the evidence itself is contested, and why the institutions we rely on to answer hard questions are often the last to ask them.
2024
"The Multi-Layered Cosmos"
Public Dialogue with Dorion Sagan · Vassar College Classics Department Annual Colloquium
A public conversation with evolutionary theorist Dorion Sagan on complexity, cosmology, and the deep structure of life and mind, ranging across biology, philosophy, and the question of what it means to understand the universe we inhabit.
2024
"The Future of UAP Studies and the Mistake We Will Make"
Invited Lecture · Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking & Yale Student UFO Society · Yale University
An invited lecture on the methodological and philosophical pitfalls most likely to impede serious scientific progress in a newly legitimized field, and what it would take to avoid them.
2023
"Will Technological Dystopia Ever Arrive?"
Science and Technology Studies Department Colloquium · Virginia Tech University
An invited presentation examining the long history of techno-pessimism, and why the fact that doomsayers have always been wrong before is not, in the case of AI, a reason for confidence. Sometimes the dystopia does arrive. The question is whether we can tell the difference in advance.
2015
"NSA Surveillance, and the State's Stake in Science"
BiCoDa Research Group Workshop · Universität Bielefeld, Germany
An invited presentation on the political and epistemic implications of state surveillance programs for the independence of scientific research, and what it means for the credibility of public knowledge when governments have a stake in what gets discovered.
2013
Media Appearances

Press & Interviews

Available for interviews on AI safety and governance, technology ethics, political philosophy, and the nature of contested empirical questions. Responds to media inquiries within 48 hours.

Recent commentary has appeared in The Debrief and across radio and podcast platforms. Topics include artificial intelligence policy, the ethics of technology, national security, and the philosophical dimensions of public life.

AI Safety & Governance Technology Ethics Political Philosophy National Security Disinformation & Epistemology The Future of Democracy
The Debrief
"Building Safe AI Is Harder and More Urgent Than Our Leaders Realize — a Philosopher Explains Why"
August 2025
Read Article →
KPFK News Los Angeles · Pacifica Radio Network
Interview on drone incursions, national security, and the epistemological challenges of evaluating anomalous evidence
2025
Link forthcoming
The Curious Introvert · Ep. 304
"Could AI Blackmail You? Corporate Affairs, Self-driving Cars & Robot Romance"
August 2025
Watch on YouTube →
The Curious Introvert · Ep. 287
"Scientific Anomalies, National Security, and the Philosophy of Unexplained Evidence"
April 2025
Watch on YouTube →
The Chrissy Newton Show
Interview on politics and the history of psychology
2024
Link forthcoming
The Debrief
"It's Time to Rethink Some Common Assumptions About UFOs"
2023
Read Article →
Contact

Get in Touch

Media

For interviews, expert commentary, and media appearances on AI, technology ethics, political philosophy, and national security. I respond to all media inquiries within 48 hours.

Consulting & Speaking

For political campaigns, organizations, and speaking engagements: please reach out with a brief description of your needs and timeline.

Philosophical Consultations for Catastrophic Risk Professionals

For one-on-one or small-group philosophical consulting for researchers, engineers, and executives navigating the ethical dimensions of AI work. All inquiries are held in strict confidence.


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