Cogut Institute for the Humanities

Brendan Fleig-Goldstein is Mellon Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Philosophy and at the Cogut Institute for the Humanities. His research focuses on the philosophical foundations of cognitive science and artificial intelligence, with particular attention to normativity, agency, and resource-bounded cognition. His work advances a framework of resource rationality to examine how well cognitive systems make use of limited resources, how cognitive limitations shape epistemic norms, and how patterns of irrationality can serve as evidence for cognitive models. His current project, “Normative Commitments and the Foundations of Rational and Moral Agency in Artificial Intelligence,” builds on this account of resource rationality to provide a framework for empirically investigating and engineering normative commitments in AI systems. He holds a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy of Science. Prior to joining Brown University, he served as Director of the Program in Cognitive Science at Columbia University.