Jay Richards, a vice-president at the Heritage Foundation, is a widely read author and popular speaker on economic and personal freedom issues. He has devoted much of his career in recent years to the question of how AI can benefit the greatest number of people. He is a strong proponent of the human advantage over artificial intelligence.

Some things he has said at COSM in earlier years highlight the issues we now face:

Future of work: “I’ve summarized about twenty-five books that have been written in the last three years. And, if you notice something, they share a fundamental assumption: that machines are capable of replacing us.” The problem there, he says, is that the machines developed by humans do not have creative freedom from humans. “I think we ought to be more hopeful than worried that in an information economy there will be a place where the human person is at the very center.” (2019)

Historically, that is what happens

The main effect of new technologies has been to create new industries. Printing, for example, replaced scribes — but scribes served only a few well-connected people. Printing, by contrast, created an entire industry of authors, editors, publishers, book promoters, distributors, and sellers, catering to a newly literate public.

When film and TV came along, some worried that they would replace books. But they actually started adapting books, which required, in turn, the services of all the positions we need in the film industry. After that, another industry blossomed around themed merchandise for fans as well. AI will certainly make a difference but it might do so mainly by creating new positions in new industries.

Transhumanism: Richards also dismisses transhumanist ideas like those of Ray Kurzweil — where we all upload our consciousnesses to machines: “Well, that is quite an arresting vision but I think that your mind is running away from you if you think about technology in that way. I mean, the reality is that every piece of technology that has ever existed has been created by human beings applying their ingenuity to the material world around them and transforming it.”

In a talk at the Acton Institute, he noted, “The underlying philosophy of transhumanism, however, should be rejected. It hinges on the assumption that the human body and its limitations need to be escaped, and that our created selves need to be enhanced in order to reach their full potential. To the contrary, the body should be appreciated and embraced, not rejected.” (2023)

And, on a lighter note, he enjoys educating chatbots. He was pleased to observe and help Anthropic’s Claude get reprogrammed, when it was giving answers, as many chatbots do, that imply that sex in humans is not binary (a biologically incorrect transactivist claim, often aimed at schools).

Meet Richards at COSM 2026: Reality Check

Published October 21, 2025 by Basic Books.

Richards, who is also a Discovery Fellow, will help welcome guests at the kickoff luncheon at noon, Wednesday, November 28. He will be joined by Discovery president Steve Buri, Cole Smead, CEO of Smead Capital Management, and philosopher of technology George Gilder, Co-Founder and Senior Fellow, Discovery Institute.

On Thursday, November 19, AT 11:00 am, Richards will face a bigger challenge. He will be a panelist on the question of “What makes a mind”? He is paired with Stanford’s Guarav Suri, author of The Emergent Mind (2025), who sees the human mind as a sort of machine. Moderator Walter Myers, Principal Engineering Manager at Microsoft, promises to have searching questions for both.

And on Friday, November 20 at 9:00 am, he will be moderating the panel on “Non-Computable You: Is Human Creativity Irreplaceable?” Computer engineering professor Robert J. Marks does not think it is replaceable; neither do the other panelists, earth scientist and attorney Casey Luskin, and digital artist Nathan Jacobson.

Today is the last day to get the standard rate

The venue, for COSM 2026: Reality Check is the the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa. in Scottsdale, AZ. Here’s the rest of the agenda and the other distinguished speakers. Register here today to still get the standard rate. Tomorrow it will cost more.

Discover ways that we are unique as human beings — compared to machines — that we never really thought about much before AI came along.