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At The Society Library, we recognize that a person’s relationship to information is one of the most fundamental, most important, and most powerful. We rely on information (whether that information is internal thoughts, instincts, and feelings - or external data, claims, and conversation) to make meaning of the world and make choices. Access to information can enable more enlightened, empowered, and emancipated decisions, just as deprivation of information can confine, control, and coerce our choices.
The Society Library is a nonpartisan, nonprofit institution dedicated to improving humanity’s relationship to information. We serve this mission by offering tools and services to support humanity’s ability to overcome the internal and external biasing forces that corrupt our ability to make more informed, inclusive, and free choices. External forces include information being inaccessible (due to echo chambers, de-platforming, agenda-setting, etc.), information being corrupted (mis/disinformation, propaganda, biased language, etc.), information being obfuscated (overwhelming technical complexity, jargon, etc.), and there simply being too much information scattered across the web and world to make sense of. Internal forces include our own cognitive biases and logically fallacious thinking processes that corrupt our sensemaking.
The Society Library dreams of a future when every human on earth inherits a library of the collective ideas, ideologies, and world-views of humanity, so they may more willfully choose to adopt or adapt beliefs, instead of more randomly or blindly inheriting ideas generationally based on limitations like geographic location, economic status, political socialization, and culture. We see a future in which freedom of thought and belief is deeply honored, and when people’s beliefs conflict, humanity has the tools to functionally negotiate those differences in a manner that maximizes freedom in being. People currently have the human right of freedom of thought and belief (Human Right #18 and #19), but to truly make that possible, we need to make information more accessible in every possible way. This is our mission and our work. This is the Society Library.
We save you time seeking truth.
Knowledge is widely available, but can be challenging to find and sort through. We create AI tools and build digital libraries to save people time researching complex topics and help them navigate the internet effectively for accurate information on important topics. We’re here to increase the signal to noise ratio by building AI tools like our AI fact-checking model, claim collector, and autonomous research agents which help people navigate the web and world.
We create civilization-scale ‘maps’ to help you put the pieces together.
Beyond collecting knowledge and building libraries, we model the arguments, claims, and evidence collected from multimodal artifacts into structured “debate map” databases, so you can compare and contrast the reasoning and evidence which justifies different points of view.
We work on improving decision-making.
Ultimately, impactful knowledge drives action and attention. However, the sheer volume and complexity of information can overwhelm decision-making. So we build tools to make decision-making easier, more informed, and less biased. Instead of telling people what to think, we help them think.
We provide education
To achieve the Society Library’s mission, we build tools to support people’s freedom of thought and choice both through internal and external support. This means that in addition to our products and services which help people collect, sort through, and make decisions on information, we also provide education to teach university students, fact-checkers, and the general public how to critical analyze information and the information landscape. We have taught students from 32 Universities our methods, and soon - we are bringing some of our educational offerings to younger ages!
..and we explore the future of knowledge representation.
Knowledge can take many complex ontological forms. Instead of shying away from the complexity of it, we want to explore how design, knowledge visualization, and UI/UX can increase comprehension and understanding, as well as aid in navigation. Many forms of knowledge are direct digitizations of their analog predecessors, but with all the freedom that a digital platform affords, we are exploring the future of knowledge representation - and literacy.
We exist to serve humanity.
The Society Library believes that intellectual freedoms are worth promoting and protecting. Our mission, vision, and values are clear, but that is not enough. In everything we do, we must stand up for intellectual freedoms like freedom of speech/expression, resisting censorship, providing access to all points of view, and freedom of belief. These are traditional library values which we believe have their place in the digital age and in digital places.
We exist to serve you.
We’re all in this together and The Society Library unequivocally recognizes that. We see ourselves as a part of a movement of many organizations and practitioners hoping to advance an epistemic revolution towards what we ourselves call the “e-lightenment era.” We’re here to collaborate, build, advise, and support you. Please reach out if there is some way we can serve you.
We are the Society Library
We will never rest until our mission finds fulfillment. Read more about our mission and vision, our virtues and values, and our team on the respective, linked pages.
…and we believe the power of knowledge should belong to everyone.
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The Society Library is a top-rated and platinum-level transparent organization.
There are hundreds of dimensions to the debates about AI Safety / Alignment / X-risk, and the Society Library is working to map them all.