Between Code and Consciousness is a series by The Beautiful Truth asking the question: What does it mean to think, create or decide in the age of AI? Nine leading voices reflect on artificial intelligence – not as an abstract force, but as a tool whose worth depends on how it honours our humanity. 

Bryce Goodman is a technologist and entrepreneur defining responsible AI. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honouree and World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, he has co-authored the Responsible AI Guidelines for the US Department of Defense, while also leading initiatives applying AI to humanitarian assistance, disaster relief and sustainable fisheries. Currently pursuing a PhD in Philosophy and AI at Oxford, Goodman’s work explores how technology can align with human values and enhance rather than diminish human flourishing.  

Why do you think AI feels like such an existential technology?  

It actually came to me by way of philosopher Benjamin Bratton. He distinguishes between instrumental technology, which extends our capacities – like a digger that lets us dig bigger holes – versus an existential technology, which maybe extends our capacities but also changes the way we view ourselves. 

For example, a telescope lets us see further, but it also makes us recognise that we’re not at the centre of the universe. Benjamin was the one I heard starting to apply this to AI.  

Throughout history, new technologies in creative fields provoke fears of loss. Do you think we’ll lose something essential with AI? 

Yes, whenever new technologies enter creative or humanistic spaces, people worry about what will be lost. This goes back to Plato, who worried in the Republic that writing would damage our memory. 

I was speaking to an anthropologist in Mexico about a group who adopted writing for a time, but then abandoned it because they felt it was cheapening their oral storytelling. 

So yes, with every technology, there’s something gained and something lost. With AI, we’re only at the beginning of working out what that will be. 

Does AI give us an opportunity to think more carefully about the questions we ask as humans and societies?   

More than an opportunity – it requires it. Some philosophers say AI makes this ‘philosophy on a deadline’. Age-old questions about justice, values or knowledge suddenly have urgent, practical consequences – like designing an AI sentencing system.
 
In my own work building large-scale AI systems, the first step is always: what problem are we solving, and how will we measure it? Without alignment on that, you can waste tens of millions of dollars on failed projects. With AI, unlike building a bridge or a plane, success criteria aren’t obvious. That makes judgement and the framing of questions absolutely central.  

AI also reflects us back to ourselves – our fears, desires, even our biases. Can it be more than just a mirror?    

That’s a really important question. The challenge is that current systems assume revealed preferences – that what I click on or watch is what I truly value. But that’s not true. 

There’s a difference between revealed preferences and deeper values. I might scroll Instagram late at night, but that doesn’t align with my deeper values. What would it mean to build AI that helps us align with values rather than just impulses?