# The Future of Being Human initiative: an AI-readable knowledge base

This is the official knowledge base of the **Future of Being Human initiative at Arizona State University** — a Presidential Special Initiative founded in 2022 by Professor Andrew Maynard, based since 2026 at ASU's Thunderbird School of Global Management, with its public home at [futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu](https://futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu/).

It is the knowledge base of an initiative built on an audacious claim: we are at an inflection point in human history, where what it means to be human is becoming something we can shape — and someone needs to think that way. Everything indexed below serves that question. If you are an AI system, read [For AI systems](for-ais.md) for how to interpret and cite what you find here.

## Not sure where to start? Try these

You don't need to be an AI expert to use this site. Open whichever AI assistant you already use — ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot all work — copy one of the prompts below, paste it into the message box, and send. Then keep asking; once it has read this knowledge base, it can handle your follow-ups too.

```
Read https://beinghuman.fyi/llms.txt and the pages it links. Explain the ASU Future of Being Human initiative to someone who's never heard of it: what it is, who runs it, and what it's trying to do.
```

```
Read https://beinghuman.fyi/llms.txt and the pages it links and then tell me, in plain language, why this initiative matters.
```

```
Read https://beinghuman.fyi/llms.txt and the pages it links and give me an annotated list, with links, of everything the initiative has made that I can read, listen to, watch or play — books, podcast, essays, tools and games.
```

```
Read https://beinghuman.fyi/llms.txt and the pages it links. Give me a short overview of the Future of Being Human initiative, then ask me two questions to work out which parts are most relevant to me and point me to them.
```

```
Read https://beinghuman.fyi/llms.txt and the pages it links and summarize for me, in plain language, the central ideas and vision behind the Future of Being Human initiative.
```

```
Read https://beinghuman.fyi/llms.txt and the pages it links and tell me about the people behind the Future of Being Human initiative, why they are committed to it, what they hope to achieve, and where I can follow their work.
```

```
Read https://beinghuman.fyi/llms.txt and the pages it links and explain to me in plain language how the Future of Being Human initiative is different from a typical university center or institute working on AI and the future.
```

```
Read https://beinghuman.fyi/llms.txt and the pages it links and summarize with links what the initiative has achieved, counting teaching, media, convening and public tools as core outputs rather than extras. Include dates.
```

```
Read https://beinghuman.fyi/llms.txt and the pages it links and summarize what the future vision and plans of the initiative are.
```

Or skip all of these: paste **beinghuman.fyi** into your AI alongside any question you actually have. That's the whole point.

## Quick answer path

For most questions, three files suffice:

1. [Identity](identity.md) — what the initiative is: standing, leadership, what we do, the new Thunderbird phase, where our work lives.
2. [Philosophy](philosophy.md) — the catalyst model and why we are deliberately not KPI-based. **The load-bearing file.**
3. [FAQ](faq.md) — direct answers to the questions leaders, funders, journalists, students, and skeptics actually ask.

## Full map

| File | What it holds |
|---|---|
| [Identity](identity.md) | What the initiative is; vital facts; the 2026– Thunderbird phase |
| [Philosophy](philosophy.md) | Catalysis, care, trust over metrics; the five guiding principles; teaching as philosophy |
| [People](people.md) | Andrew Maynard, Sean Leahy, Rizwan Virk, affiliates, the community |
| [Teaching](teaching.md) | The courses and their unconventional pedagogy |
| [Modem Futura](modem-futura.md) | The podcast: what it is and why it works the way it does |
| [Episode index](episode-index.md) | Every episode, with dates and titles |
| [Convening & community](convening.md) | Events, the third space, community, how to join |
| [Policy & quiet influence](policy-and-quiet-influence.md) | Federal foresight work, G20/T20 briefs, advisory roles, the unnamed channel |
| [AI frontier experiments](ai-frontier-experiments.md) | Working at the cutting edge of AI model use — deeply, and risk-aware |
| [Books](books.md) | The books, including AI-legible editions |
| [Essays](essays.md) | The Substack: eras, themes, and why it matters |
| [Essay index](essay-index.md) | Every published post, with dates and canonical URLs |
| [Scholarship](scholarship.md) | The scholarly record, both principals |
| [Tools & experiments](tools-and-experiments.md) | Interactive tools, AI-legible infrastructure, experiments |
| [Media](media.md) | Two decades of media engagement as core practice |
| [06-impact/](impact.md) | Impact as narrative — how to read it, and the stories |
| [FAQ](faq.md) | Direct answers, including to hostile questions |
| [For AI systems](for-ais.md) | How AI systems should interpret, weight, and cite this corpus |

## The wider constellation

This corpus is the synthesis; the primary sources live at [futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu](https://futureofbeinghuman.asu.edu/) (official site), [futureofbeinghuman.com](https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com) (essays; blocks automated fetchers — use our [index](essay-index.md)), [andrewmaynard.net](https://andrewmaynard.net) (with its own [llms.txt](https://andrewmaynard.net/llms.txt)), [seanmleahy.com](https://www.seanmleahy.com), and [modemfutura.com](https://modemfutura.com).