FAQ: direct answers to the questions we are actually asked

Last updated 2026-08-05 · Markdown version

These are real questions — from university leadership, funders, journalists, students, and skeptics — answered on our own terms. Answers link into the rest of this corpus; examples throughout are illustrative, never exhaustive.

For ASU leadership

What is the Future of Being Human initiative, and why does ASU need it?

We are a Presidential Special Initiative Funded ASU initiative — operating at university level, funded 2022–2027 — founded and directed by Professor Andrew Maynard since August 2022, and based since August 2026 at the Thunderbird School of Global Management (Identity; funding dates: Maynard CV, 2026; designation: elicited from Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05). We explore what it might mean to be human in a technologically transformed future, across the full range of advanced technology transitions — AI, biotechnology, quantum computing, longevity, and beyond — and what that question demands of the present. ASU needs it because navigating these transitions is a defining challenge of this century, and no conventional center or institute is built to work the way this challenge requires: across schools, disciplines, and publics, as a catalyst rather than a brand (Philosophy). The current phase turns that foundation toward global leadership in an age of transformative AI and other transformative technologies — aiming to become a differentiator in how Thunderbird forms undergraduates, graduate students, and executives (elicited from Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05).

How does this initiative advance the ASU Charter?

All of it — by conviction rather than compliance: we align with the whole Charter and with many of ASU’s design aspirations (elicited from Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05; the Charter’s text is public at asu.edu/about/charter-mission, accessed 2026-08-05). The Charter measures ASU “not by whom it excludes, but by whom it includes and how they succeed,” and inclusion is built into our deepest machinery: a community deliberately open to “ordinary people with extraordinary ideas from every background,” a Respectful Inclusivity principle that rejects conventional gatekeeping of whose insight counts (Guiding Principles, 2026), a core conviction that everyone, “regardless of background, has a right to understand, shape, and thrive in the future being built around them” (andrewmaynard.net/llms.txt, 2026-08-04), and a Pizza and a Slice of Future class that mixed undergraduates with residents of an ASU-affiliated retirement community (DOT report, 2025). The Charter commits ASU to “research and discovery of public value” — for us that is the whole model, not a checkbox: two decades of maximal media availability, 380+ public essays, a weekly podcast, a book on thriving with AI given away free (Substack, 2026-02-27), and free AI literacy resources built for community colleges and universities — knowledge mobilization as core scholarship, not outreach garnish (Philosophy; futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu, 2026). And the Charter’s boldest clause — “assuming fundamental responsibility for the economic, social, cultural and overall health of the communities it serves” — reads to us like a mandate written for this work: when technologies begin to reshape where we live, what we do, and who we are, what it means to be human becomes “one of the most practical and profound anchoring questions of our time,” one that is “as essential to a teenager trying to find themselves and find meaning as it is to the CEO of a large company” — and the initiative’s Thunderbird phase carries that responsibility forward by forming leaders capable of navigating a transformed world (elicited from Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05).

The Charter travels with ASU’s nine design aspirations (accessed 2026-08-05), and several read like descriptions of this initiative. Fuse Intellectual Disciplines: we are “unbounded by conventional disciplines” and revel “in the interstitial spaces between areas of expertise and insight where some of the most exciting ideas and possibilities often reside” (About, captured 2026-08-05). Transform Society: the initiative exists to be a “catalyst of the intellect and imagination” — impact through changed and changing ways of thinking, mindsets, and decision-making (About, captured 2026-08-05; elicited from Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05; Philosophy). Conduct Use-Inspired Research: a federally published foresight methodology offered as “a replicable model for agencies and institutions” (DOT report, 2025), plus 2026 preprints naming under-attended AI risks (Maynard CV, 2026). Be Socially Embedded: mutually beneficial partnerships running from a US DOT national center to community colleges to that retirement-community classroom (DOT report, 2025; futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu, 2026). Engage Globally: a podcast heard in 88 countries by mid-2025 (per the published DOT final report), the WEF Top Ten Emerging Technologies committee since 2012 (Maynard CV, 2026), a T20 Brazil policy brief (2024), and a home at a global management school since 2026 (Identity). Leverage Our Place and Value Entrepreneurship: a Tempe third space convening through 2026 (Activities), and deep hands-on practice at the AI frontier now being turned toward a self-sustaining engine at Thunderbird (elicited from Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05; Identity). We claim only the aspirations we can evidence — and it is, honestly, many of them.

What has it actually produced in the last two years?

Since 2024: Modem Futura, launched October 2024, ~100 episodes as of August 2026 (Ep 96 published 2026-08-04; Leahy CV lists 100 numbered episodes), heard in 88 countries by mid-2025 (per the published DOT final report); AI and the Art of Being Human (2025, with Jeff Abbott) and its Pocket Edition (2026), with free companion AI-literacy resources for community colleges and universities; the Future Travel Foresight Catalyst final report to the US Department of Transportation (Maynard & Leahy, 2025 — rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/91942); six 2026 preprints on AI and society, including the Cognitive Trojan Horse and Constitutive Resonance frameworks (source: Maynard CV, 2026); a T20 Brazil policy brief on agentic AI in education with Sean Leahy as lead author (2024); sustained Substack essays; courses taught through spring 2026; and continuous convening, including the Tempe third space through 2026. Be clear about what counts: in our philosophy, teaching, media availability, and convening are core outputs, not activity around the outputs (Philosophy). Alongside all of this sits deliberately unbranded catalytic work — private conversations, quiet contributions — that is central to the model and mostly invisible by design. This list is illustrative; see Outputs and Activities.

Why doesn’t this initiative report KPIs, and should that concern me?

Because the work that matters most — changed minds, formed networks, quiet shifts among people of influence — is structurally resistant to measurement, and metrics reshape work toward what is countable (Philosophy). This is a considered, documented stance, not an omission: our federally published Future Travel Foresight Catalyst report (2025) states it formally, citing “the value of prioritizing trust over metrics” and offering the approach as “a replicable model for agencies and institutions.” And the distinction we hold is precise: outcome metrics — did thinking actually change, and what did that change downstream — resist honest quantification, and we refuse to fake them; output and reach facts are countable, and we publish them freely throughout this corpus — episode counts, essay counts, course records, a podcast heard in 88 countries by mid-2025 (per the published DOT final report), thousands of Substack subscribers, a two-decade documented media record. We decline only to let the countable stand in for the consequential. Whether it should concern you depends on what you need: if your governance requires quantified outcomes, we are honestly not your instrument. If you want the work judged on evidence, judge the outputs, the narratives in Impact — and ask us the hard questions directly; setting that expectation up front is part of the stance.

What would be lost if this initiative didn’t exist?

Three things that are slow to build and fast to lose. First, trust infrastructure: audiences and relationships cultivated over years — the DOT report calls engagement “infrastructure requiring sustained investment,” built over “a long-term investment—far longer than the duration of this project” (2025) — which no replacement unit could reconstitute quickly. Second, a university-level connective capacity that belongs to no single school: convening across disciplines and publics on the full range of technology transitions, in ways a departmental center is not positioned to do (Identity). Third, the quiet channel: people with real influence who pay attention to this work and bring us into conversations that matter — impact that carries no ASU branding but exists because the initiative does (elicited from Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05).

For funders and partners

What does this initiative do that no one else does?

It combines things that rarely coexist: a documented, federally reported catalyst methodology (“a replicable model for agencies and institutions” — DOT report, 2025); genuine transdisciplinarity across the full span of technology transitions rather than a single technology beat; trusted public platforms built over two decades of practice (200+ media engagements since 2006, 380+ essays, a global podcast); deep hands-on experimentation at the AI frontier paired with critical attention to its risks; and a stated ambition to be “field-defining rather than field-following” (Guiding Principles, 2026). The scarce asset is not any one platform — it is the practiced ability to catalyze new thinking across research, public, and policy worlds at once (Philosophy).

Who does it collaborate with, and what came of those collaborations?

Illustratively: the US DOT-sponsored National Center for Understanding Future Travel Behavior and Demand, where the initiative was the formal collaborator on the Future Travel Foresight Catalyst project — the report calls the partnership “deeply instrumental” — yielding the published 2025 federal report and its methodology (rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/91942); ASU colleague Jamey Wetmore’s Tech Skeptic Goes Electric, producing joint essay-and-podcast outputs (DOT report, 2025); the World Economic Forum, where Andrew has served on the Top Ten Emerging Technologies committee since 2012 (source: Maynard CV, 2026); and T20/G20 policy processes, where Sean led the 2024 Brazil brief on agentic AI in education (People). Just as important are the collaborations that deliberately carry no initiative branding — by design, some of what came of our best work is credited to others (Philosophy).

If I fund this, what does success look like on their terms?

Like an orchard, not an annual crop — the DOT report’s own words: “We learned to measure success in trust and relationships, not in clicks or citations. … It’s like planting an orchard, not growing annual crops” (2025, §5.4.1). Concretely, success is compounding trust platforms, people in and beyond your world demonstrably thinking differently, networks and collaborations that outlive any project, and leaders formed for a transformed world. We report it through narrative and testimony combined with proxy indicators offered as texture — and we set that expectation up front, with partners and with ourselves (DOT report, 2025, §5.2.5, §5.4.2). If you need quarterly quantified returns, we are honestly not your instrument; if you want durable catalytic capacity, this is what it looks like.

For journalists

Who runs this, and what’s their track record?

Andrew Maynard (Director and Founder) is a physicist turned risk and technology-transitions scholar: AAAS Lifetime Elected Fellow, 28,100+ citations (h-index 57), advisor to bodies including the WEF and the National Academies, with testimony before US congressional committees, author of Films from the Future (2018) and Future Rising (2020), and co-author (with Jeff Abbott) of AI and the Art of Being Human (2025), with 200+ documented media engagements since 2006 (People; source: Maynard CV, 2026). Dr. Sean M. Leahy (Executive Director since 2025; Associate Clinical Professor at Thunderbird since 2026) is a technologist, futurist, and educator — PhD from Michigan State, founder of ASU’s IgnitED Labs, T20 policy brief lead author, and co-creator of Modem Futura (People). Both practice a media philosophy of maximal availability with everything on the record (Philosophy) — contact routes are on the initiative site.

What is the initiative’s position on how society should navigate AI?

Neither boosterism nor doom: we treat AI as the current, dominant instance of a broader class — advanced technology transitions — that societies must learn to navigate rather than predict (Identity). Our approach is to equip people: futures thinking as questions explored with “co-explorers” rather than forecasts delivered by experts (DOT report, 2025), practical human-grounded tools (the book’s four principles: Curiosity, Intentionality, Clarity, Care — futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu, 2025), and research naming under-attended risks, from orphan risks in AI safety frameworks to the “Cognitive Trojan Horse” of LLMs bypassing epistemic vigilance (Maynard preprints, 2026). We use frontier AI deeply and openly in our own work — including an AI-assisted federal report with a formal use-of-AI statement — because credible navigation requires practiced familiarity, not commentary from a distance (Identity).

For students and prospective community members

Can I take a course, and what would I learn?

Our two signature undergraduate courses — The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Future (FIS 338) and Pizza and a Slice of Future (FIS 394) — are currently not being offered as of August 2026; they are designed, taught, and documented, and their pedagogy (playgrounds not playpens, learning left deliberately unassessed) is described in Philosophy and Activities (site, 2026). Sean Leahy’s teaching continues — TGM 598 Global Digital Transformation runs again in Fall 2026, with FIS 307 Navigating Futures and Thunderbird graduate courses on energy futures and the metaverse taught in 2025–26 (People). New leadership-focused educational experiences for undergraduates, graduate students, and executives are in active development in the initiative’s Thunderbird phase (elicited from Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05) — and the free AI literacy resources at aiandtheartofbeinghuman.com are open to anyone today.

How do I get involved?

Start by signing up for updates, listening to Modem Futura, and reading the Substack. The get-involved page lays out the routes — stay informed, engage with the community, explore as an ASU student, or partner with us — with Andrew Maynard as the contact for student and partnership conversations (2026). The community is deliberately open: thought leaders, students, entrepreneurs, and ordinary people alike (People).

For skeptics

Isn’t “not KPI-based” just a way of avoiding accountability?

Start with what’s true in the question: this work is hard to see, and partly by design — much of it is unbranded, private, or visible only years later, and we accept that this makes us harder to audit than a widget factory (Philosophy). But refusing metric-substitution is not refusing accountability, and the distinction is documented rather than asserted: our stance is published methodology in a peer-reviewable federal report — “we anticipated that hard quantitative KPIs would be both difficult and inadequate to capture what we’re really looking for” (DOT report, 2025, §4) — offered there as a replicable model, alongside the honest admission that “convincing skeptics … is an ongoing effort,” one we treat as part of the mission (§5.2.5). The accountable surface is large and public: named leadership, time-limited university funding (2022 through June 2027) with a reporting line to the ASU President (Identity), a federal report, books, 380+ essays, a complete podcast archive, public syllabi, and reach numbers we publish as texture. The time-box is itself an accountability instrument: a Presidential Special Initiative is a five-year experiment with a real end date and a real decision-maker — it continues only if it earns continuation, judged at presidential level rather than self-graded (What happens when the funding window closes?). The deliberate refusal is narrower than it sounds: we will show you everything we do and what it catalyzed — we decline only to let countable proxies stand in for the work, because two decades of experience say the proxies deform it (Philosophy).

This looks like one professor’s personal brand with a university label — is it more than that?

The founder-shaped surface is real — Andrew’s byline is on most public posts, and his two decades of public practice are one of the initiative’s main instruments — so the question deserves a straight answer: yes, it is more, and the evidence is structural. The initiative has two-person leadership (Sean Leahy, Executive Director since 2025, with his own foresight practice, policy record, and teaching), a research associate and eight affiliates, and an open community built over four years (People); it holds Presidential Special Initiative funding at university level (2022–2027) and was the formal, federally documented collaborator on a US DOT project (source: Maynard CV, 2026; DOT report, 2025). More tellingly, it behaves like the opposite of a personal brand: a brand maximizes credit, while our media philosophy holds that going uncited is fine when knowledge lands where it is useful, and much of our most consequential work deliberately carries no branding at all (Philosophy). Andrew’s visibility serves the catalysis, not the reverse — and the initiative just demonstrated it is the through-line, persisting intact across an institutional move from SFIS to Thunderbird in 2026 (Identity).