AI and Human Flourishing

AI’s potential seems limitless - and not only according to those building it and profiting from the current AI boom. Curing disease, solving the climate crisis, ending the epidemic of loneliness: there seems no end to the intractable problems that suddenly seem to maybe, just maybe, be solvable with the help of AI. But what sort of people will we become in the process? Are problem-solving and human flourishing necessarily the same thing?

Last March, the Octet Collaborative hosted an interdisciplinary colloquium devoted to this question, which became the basis for this special season of the Infinite Corridor podcast. In this, the second of three episodes taking you directly into the conversation, we hear voices spanning technology, entrepreneurship, and the humanities, addressing the question of human flourishing. The conversation sheds light on the importance of considering not only how we shape and use AI as a tool, but how we might be deliberate about using it in a way that shapes us toward deeper wisdom, stronger communities, and a clearer vision of what makes us human.