Reading List
Carissa Véliz
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Ethics, University of Oxford
Carissa Veliz is an associate professor at Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in AI, working on privacy, the ethics of artificial intelligence and political philosophy. Privacy Is Power, an Economist book of the year, argues that giving away personal data is not a private choice but a collective harm, because what you surrender exposes people who never consented to it. Prophecy follows prediction from the ancient oracles through to algorithmic forecasting, and treats both as instruments of power.
01
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Oedipus Rex
by Sophocles
“The Delphic Oracle tells Oedipus that he will sleep with his own mother and slay his father. Oedipus, desperate to avoid that happening, leaves Corinth, where the couple he thinks are his parents live, and heads for Thebes. Unbeknownst to Oedipus, his real parents, Laius and Jocasta, are the king and queen of Thebes… Spoiler alert, the prediction, despite seeming unlikely, comes true in both respects.” — via Interview, May 2026
02
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The Black Swan
The Impact of the Highly Improbable
by Nassim Nicholas Taleb · 2010 · Economics
“This has become an absolute classic. Even though Taleb did not formally study philosophy at university, this is a very philosophical book. He is well-read in philosophy, and he discusses many philosophers and philosophical arguments. Taleb makes a convincing case for why some things in life are always going to be unpredictable.” — via Interview, May 2026
03
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The Origins of Totalitarianism
by Hannah Arendt
“Arendt was a very insightful philosopher who lived through some of the darkest times in history and whose own life was deeply affected by her personal experience of Nazism and the Holocaust. A German-born Jew, she fled her homeland in 1933 and then France, eventually settling in the US.” — via Interview, May 2026
04
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The Bluest Eye
by Toni Morrison · 1970 · Fiction
“Toni Morrison is one of my favourite novelists. There are few writers who write so well, who are as insightful and as careful with words as she is, and as creative with words too.” — via Interview, May 2026
05
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Here One Moment
by Liane Moriarty
“Comedy is a great way of being irreverent towards the powers that be, and Fate is the ultimate power, in a way. Another reason why I value comedy so much is that it strikes me that comedians are just philosophers with a good sense of humour, and philosophers are just comedians without one.” — via Interview, May 2026