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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 precision.

Available for consulting, speaking, and advisory engagements
  • PhD philosopher: tech ethics, AI governance, systems thinking, policy, strategy
  • Ethics training adopted by Fortune 500 companies, state governments, and university systems
  • Invited speaker at Yale, Vassar, and universities across the US and Europe
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
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 & Keynotes
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 appearances, consulting engagements, and speaking inquiries.
About

Michael Glawson

Philosopher, consultant, and public speaker. A decade of applied work at the intersection of ethics, politics, AI, and global catastrophic risk.

I am a philosopher of technology and ethics with a decade of experience bringing rigorous, structured philosophical thinking to bear on the hardest problems in politics, technology, and public life.

Across that decade the through-line has been translation: carrying rigorous moral reasoning into a Fortune 500 boardroom, US Senate and gubernatorial campaigns, and university lecture halls, and making it usable in each. The executive ethics training I built wasn't about compliance, but about making moral judgment a practical skill that supports an organization's long-term flourishing. The same instinct shapes how I advise leaders, teams, and campaigns today.

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 and psychological burdens that arise from working at this frontier.

Michael Glawson, PhD
Background & Expertise
  • PhD in philosophy — technology ethics, AI governance, systems thinking, policy, and strategy
  • Policy and messaging advisor to US Senate and gubernatorial campaigns
  • Executive ethics training adopted by Fortune 500 firms, state governments, and university systems
  • Built university programs in engineering and technology ethics
  • Invited lectures at Yale, Vassar, and universities across the US and Europe
  • Philosophy faculty at three universities for over a decade
Research & Writing

Selected Works

Scholarship and public writing spanning AI safety, technology ethics, and policy.

Download CV
Essay · SlashFrame
How the Left Might Survive the Next Seven Years (Pt. 1)
SlashFrame (Substack)
2026
Essay · SlashFrame
AI Domination, or Consider the Lobster Mushroom
SlashFrame (Substack)
2026
Essay · SlashFrame
AI Alignment is the 21st Century's Version of Perpetual Motion
SlashFrame (Substack)
2026
Article
Building Safe AI Is Harder and More Urgent Than Our Leaders Realize — a Philosopher Explains Why
The Debrief
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
The Debrief
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

My consulting work centers on a single kind of problem: the decisions faced by people whose work carries outsized consequence, where the stakes are high, the uncertainty is deep, and the ethical dimensions can't be set aside. It is grounded in years of rigorous training in systems thinking and deep expertise at the intersection of technology, policy, and human values, a combination that is rare, and essential precisely where there is no trusted playbook.

Frontier AI, global catastrophic risk, and political life are not separate practices. They are instances of the same work: bringing structured moral and strategic reasoning to problems that resist it. The people I most often work with include:

  • AI safety and governance professionals, those building, aligning, and governing systems at a scale of consequence with little precedent, and carrying the moral and strategic weight that comes with it.
  • Political campaigns, policymakers, and advisors, bringing moral clarity and strategic rigor to the issues that will define the next decade, in language built to hold up under pressure.
  • Global catastrophic risk professionals, those working under existential stakes across biosecurity, climate and sustainability, and other catastrophic-risk domains.

"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."

AI & Global Catastrophic Risk

The people working at the frontier of AI and global catastrophic risk carry burdens most professional support structures aren't built for. The 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 confronts them.

Philosophical Counsel 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.
Politics

Politics has lost touch with its central principles, and with the public's confidence. Political organizations also face a knowledge challenge: the issues that matter most to voters — AI governance, technology policy, national security, and the health of democracy itself — are complex and difficult to message. I bridge that gap by helping campaigns understand the issues deeply enough to craft compelling policies, then finding the language that makes those policies resonate.

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 central policy challenge of the coming 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 of Georgia  ·  Annie Andrews for US Senate
Speaking

Lectures & Keynotes

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.

"A good lecture doesn't just hand the audience answers; it leaves them asking entirely new questions. That's what I aim for, whether the subject is AI policy, the future of democracy, or the risks we'd rather not name."
Ready-to-Book Presentations
  • Cultivating Clarity and Joy in the Face of Potential Doom
  • The Moral Strategy for Reviving Liberal Democracy
  • How to Win Without Losing Your Soul: Ethics and Political Communication
  • When the Frameworks Aren't Enough: 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. I respond to all inquiries within 48 hours.

Recently I've provided commentary to The Debrief, KPFK Los Angeles / Pacifica Radio, The Curious Introvert, and The Chrissy Newton Show. Topics include artificial intelligence policy, the ethics of technology, national security, and the philosophical dimensions of public life.

AI Safety & Governance Technology Ethics National Security Safeguarding Liberal 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
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 inquiries within 48 hours. Please indicate if you are working to a specific deadline.

Consulting & Speaking

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

Strategic Philosophical Counsel

One-on-one and small-group philosophical counsel for leaders across fields where the decisions are hard, the stakes are high, and the ethical dimensions are real — AI researchers and developers, public health and biosecurity professionals, policymakers and government advisors, and sustainability strategists.

Email
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LinkedIn CV (PDF)

If something on this site resonates, please get in touch.