Aaron Kagan
Phd
Founder
Blends cognitive science, UX research, and AI strategy to help teams design AI systems that feel intuitive, trustworthy, and human.
Community · Research Studio · Strategy Practice
GraspingAI is a community for thoughtful people navigating the opportunities and implications of AI together.
We bring together research, design, philosophy, and practical experience to help people make sense of AI and build better systems around it.
What GraspingAI is
A different kind of AI organization.
Research studio
We study how AI systems shape judgment, trust, work, and organizations.
Strategy practice
We help turn that thinking into better decisions, methods, workshops, and advisory work.
Public thinking space
We share essays, talks, concepts, and frameworks for making sense of AI.
Community of practice
We gather people across disciplines to think, learn, and work together.
What happens here
Four ways we work.
01
Informed Exchange
Not just content: speaker series, interviews, roundtables, and real exchange.
Explore thinking →02
Practical Learning
Workshops, explainers, and frameworks for navigating AI thoughtfully.
Start learning →Research and experiments
Current projects.
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AI Leaders Need Philosophers
An in-progress inquiry into the gap between AI leaders calling for philosophical thinking and the actual availability of philosophy-informed roles in tech, and what a real path into the field could look like.
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Intentional Systems
A research framework for designing AI systems that preserve human agency, support meaningful choice, and remain legible to the people affected by them.
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Metaphor Infrastructure
A project mapping how AI interface metaphors, including assistant, agent, copilot, brain, and tool, shape trust, agency, and use.
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Organizational AI Adoption
Frameworks for helping organizations adopt AI without weakening judgment, accountability, culture, or decision quality.
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Project Audit Goblin
Nielsen's heuristics have served design for thirty years, but they were written for deterministic software, and AI systems break most of them. A practical evaluation method for AI-powered products: usability, trust calibration, metaphor coherence, expectation alignment, and failure handling.
The community
Who we are.
A growing group of researchers, designers, practitioners, and thinkers bringing different forms of expertise to the questions AI raises.
David Pearl
Founding Partner
Helps turn emerging AI ideas into practical tools, workflows, and prototypes people can use.
Adrian Alsmith
Phd
Founding Fellow
Brings philosophy and cognitive science into GraspingAI’s work on agency, embodiment, and AI.
Britt Kagan
Founding Designer
Shapes GraspingAI’s visual identity, editorial feel, and human-centered design judgment. Helps keep the work clear, grounded, and visually alive.
Charles Lassiter
Phd
Founding Scholar
Studies cognition and group belief through philosophy of mind and social epistemology.
Alex Grzankowski
Phd
Founding Fellow
Sharpens GraspingAI’s thinking on mind, language, AI, and the concepts we use to understand them.
Featured thinking
Recent ideas.
Talk
Philosophy of Science at Work
Presentation for the Philosophy of Science Association (PSA) on how philosophy of science applies to practical, professional work.
June 2026 InterviewTiny Research Wins
Podcast/interview conversation about UX research, AI, embodied cognition, and human-AI systems.
June 2026 EssayAI Glossary: AI Metaphors
Public glossary entry on metaphors for AI and how they shape interpretation, expectations, and design.
May 2026Ways to engage
Get involved.
Join or contribute
Introduce yourself, follow our work, hear about events, or explore ways to contribute.
Join or contribute →Work with GraspingAI
Explore consulting, research, workshops, advising, and organizational partnerships.
See how we work →