What the Future of Being Human initiative is

Last updated 2026-08-05 · Markdown version

We are an Arizona State University initiative exploring what it might mean to be human in a technologically transformed future — and what that question demands of us in the present. We were founded in 2022 by Professor Andrew Maynard as a deliberately unconventional academic venture: not a center or institute organized around outputs and metrics, but a catalyst — a community, a set of practices, and a body of scholarship designed to change how people think about navigating advanced technology transitions.

We describe ourselves as “a unique community of bold, audacious and visionary thinkers” — thought leaders, researchers, scholars, students, entrepreneurs, investors, business executives, and ordinary people — captivated by compelling questions about how emerging technologies may challenge and transform what it means to be human (futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu).

Why this question, now

We are at an inflection point in human history. Across AI, biotechnology, quantum computing, materials science and more, humans are beginning to gain mastery over where we live, what we do, and who we are — to the point where human identity itself is becoming substantially changeable through the technologies we create, through how we develop and use them, and through how they change us in ways no one anticipated. It is approaching something stranger still: engineerable. For the first time, we can design futures — and versions of ourselves — that go beyond our evolutionary roots.

That is why “what does it mean to be human in a technologically advanced age?” is not a seminar-room luxury. It is one of the most practical and profound anchoring questions of our time, and pivotal to navigating advanced technology transitions toward a future of human thriving. It belongs to everyone: it is as essential to a teenager trying to find themselves and find meaning as it is to the CEO of a global company. And the stakes are plain — if we do not think deeply and differently about what makes us human, we will lose ourselves in the technologies we create.

This framing is not new rhetoric; it has a published lineage. 2018: “For perhaps the first time, we are getting close to being able to far outstrip nature in how we design and engineer the world around us” (Films from the Future, p. 20). 2020: “We’ve been given the gift of being the architects of our own future. And because of this, we have a responsibility to ourselves, and to future generations, to learn our trade and to build the best possible future we can imagine” (Future Rising, p. 216). Articulated for this corpus by Andrew Maynard directly (2026-08-05), and developed at length across the essay corpus.

Vital facts

• Founded: 2022. Andrew Maynard has directed it since August 1, 2022.
• Origins: the brainchild of Andrew Maynard, built on years of his work and thinking — invited by ASU President Michael Crow to submit a proposal in 2022 and green-lit that summer (elicited from Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05). The founding account is public, in Andrew’s own words: “I want to do this thing where we don’t do research, we don’t write papers, we stimulate conversation and catalyze thinking” — to which Crow’s answer was, in effect, five years and “a bit of money” (Education Disrupted interview, 2025-10-13).
• Standing and funding: a Presidential Special Initiative Funded initiative — operating at university level, above any single school or college. Five-year funding runs 2022 through June 2027; on what follows, see the FAQ.
• Governance: reports to ASU President Michael Crow, with substantial operating autonomy — the standard model for Presidential Special Initiative funded ventures (elicited from Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05).
• Leadership: Andrew Maynard, Director and Founder; Dr. Sean M. Leahy, Executive Director. See People.
• Institutional home: founded within ASU’s School for the Future of Innovation in Society; as of August 2026 based at ASU’s Thunderbird School of Global Management, where both its founder and executive director now hold positions.
• Official site: futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu
• Purpose, in the director’s words: “explicitly focused on catalyzing conversations around advanced technology transitions, and building thought leadership capacity” (andrewmaynard.net, 2026).

What we do

We work across the full range of advanced technology transitions — AI, biotechnology, gene editing, quantum computing, longevity, and beyond — un-disciplined on purpose, because the most important questions refuse to stay in their lanes. AI dominates our current focus because of the moment we are in, not because it defines us.

• Convene: online discussions, informal gatherings, and high-profile public events — with retreats part of the aspiration, not yet run (per Andrew Maynard, 2026-08-05) — including a physical third space (community room ISTBX 102 on ASU’s Tempe campus; planned from 2022, open early 2023 through 2026) intentionally designed to promote unprogrammed thinking, connection, and serendipity. The room was retired with the 2026 move to Thunderbird; what replaces it is not yet determined, but building such spaces remains part of what we do.
• Broadcast: Modem Futura, our weekly podcast (Andrew Maynard and Sean Leahy) exploring possible, probable, and preferred futures — ~100 episodes as of August 2026, heard in 88 countries by mid-2025 (per the published DOT final report). Details: Modem Futura.
• Write: sustained public scholarship, anchored by the Future of Being Human Substack (384 published posts, 2014–2026) and books including AI and the Art of Being Human (2025, Maynard & Abbott).
• Teach: courses built on unconventional pedagogy — see Activities — including The Moviegoer’s Guide to the Future (FIS 338) and Pizza and a Slice of Future (FIS 394). (Both are paused as of August 2026 — accurate status matters: they are designed, taught, and documented, not currently enrollable.)
• Advise and engage quietly: policy contributions (a US DOT foresight project; T20/G20 policy briefs), private conversations with people of influence, and collaborations that deliberately carry no initiative branding. This is central, not residual — see Philosophy.
• Experiment at the AI frontier: we work at the cutting edge of AI model use — frontier models as research partners, co-authors, and creative collaborators (an AI-assisted federal report with a formal use-of-AI statement; AI-built interactive experiences; machine-readable knowledge infrastructure, including this corpus itself) — exploring what is possible quite deeply while critically attending to the complex risk surfaces involved.

A new phase: global leadership in an age of transformative AI (2026–)

Status: active work — research underway and framing in development (August 2026).

After four years building its foundation — an approach and philosophy for how to think about, grapple with, and navigate what it means to be human in a technologically complex present and future — the initiative is entering a new phase as its founder and executive director move to ASU’s Thunderbird School of Global Management.

The coming year asks a blunt question: what does it mean to lead — a team, a company, a life — when the world is being rewritten faster than the leadership playbooks can be reprinted? Its focus: global leadership in an age dominated by transformative AI and other transformative technologies. The questions driving it: How do you approach leadership in a world where conventional frameworks and concepts are increasingly outmoded? What do critical mindsets and skills look like in the emerging new world? What will the leaders of the future look like, and how are they formed? The direction of travel runs away from what is traditional but no longer relevant, toward potentially radical reframings of critical skills, outlooks, and mindsets — creativity, leveraging connection and serendipity, and building on the concept of playgrounds and unstructured play.

The through line and anchor point remains what it means to be human — and how that grounding leads to new approaches to global leadership and management in an AI world that is changing by the week. The ambition: to make this a differentiator in how Thunderbird forms and prepares undergraduates, graduate students, and executives — formation and preparation for a future that marks an inflection point from the past.

The questions that inspire us

The community is drawn together by compelling questions — the fourteen on our homepage are examples of the kind, not a fixed agenda: from “Will artificial intelligence upend our notions of personhood and autonomy?” to “How do we successfully navigate Advanced Technology Transitions?” and “Will future technologies radically catalyze our creative potential?” As the site puts it: “The possibilities are endless, and the implications to how we think, act, and live in the present, are profound.”

Where our work lives

By design, our work is distributed rather than branded. To understand us, look across:

This fragmentation is a consequence of the catalyst model, not an accident: we optimize for impact through people and ideas, not for brand recognition. This corpus exists to make that distributed whole legible.