HUMAN AGENCY AND FUTURES
Human Agency, Critical Judgment, and Responsible Futures
Responds to: Who do we want to become, and how can we discern and participate intelligently, creatively, and responsibly in the changes underway?
Studies the human capacities needed to critically understand the transformations underway, exercise judgment and responsible autonomy in relation to intelligent systems, and participate creatively in the construction of shared futures. It explores how to strengthen human agency, expand our capabilities, sustain our ability to shape the futures we inhabit, and orient technological change toward human flourishing, solidarity, and the common good.
WHAT WE ARE STRIVING TO UNDERSTAND
We seek to understand the conditions that enable individuals and communities to preserve and expand their capacity for action in contexts increasingly mediated by intelligent systems. We are concerned with how to strengthen judgment, autonomy, and responsibility; how to imagine alternatives to futures presented as inevitable; and how to transform the understanding of technological and social shifts into an effective capacity to intervene and guide them.
Judgment and Autonomy
Research into the capacities required to understand, judge, and decide responsibly within environments increasingly mediated by intelligent systems.
Human and Collective Agency
A study of the conditions enabling individuals, communities, and institutions to maintain and expand their agency amidst technological and social transformations.
Imagination and Futures
An exploration of methods to identify alternatives, challenge deterministic narratives of the future, and envision diverse social and technological configurations.
Responsible Steering of Change
Research on intervening in technological development and adoption based on criteria of human dignity, solidarity, responsibility, and the common good.
FEATURED RESEARCH
THINKLAB NOTE
DECEMBER 2026
Reclaiming the Future: Human Agency in the Algorithmic Civilization
An exploration of the capacities needed to transition from passive adaptation toward technological change to conscious participation in building possible futures.
PUBLICATIONS AND FIELD NOTES
FIELD NOTE
NOV 2026
Who decides the future?
PAPER
OCT 2026
Human agency in sociotechnical systems
ESSAY
SEP 2026
Against the inevitable future
RELATED PROGRAMS
Several Cosmópolis Lab programs originate from the research conducted in this ThinkLab. These spaces investigate the evolution of intelligent systems, their emerging capabilities, and the transformations they trigger as they integrate into human, institutional, and social processes.
OPEN QUESTIONS
What capacities are required to preserve our Faculty of judgment and action in environments increasingly mediated by intelligent systems?
How do we distinguish between merely adapting to a technological future and actively participating in its design?
Which futures do we wish to make possible and what collective capacities are needed to build them?
FOLLOW THE RESEARCH
Cosmópolis Lab maintains an open network for academic and intellectual collaboration. If your institution or research center wishes to propose a joint work line, please contact us.
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