HumanConnections.AI + Harvard Human Flourishing Program + Preston-Werner Ventures | San Francisco Salon
Source: hfh.fas.harvard.edu/ai-and-flourishing
The AI and Flourishing Initiative aims to study the impact artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies are having on personal and communal flourishing and to promote strategies for re-embedding technological progress within a rich understanding of human society and purpose. Led by Dr. Jonathan Teubner, the AI and Flourishing Initiative has brought together leading social scientists, philosophers and theologians to influence and shape the future directions of AI development and policies. In 2024, we spearheaded two key engagements. In collaboration with USC’s Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies and Domus Communis Foundation, we convened a series of symposia that brought together philosophers, theologians, economists, policy experts, tech CEOs and venture capitalists in Rome, Italy to discuss some of the regulatory and corporate governance challenges of re-embedding technology in society to ensure it is developed and deployed in service of individuals and communities. Also in 2024, we launched the HumanConnection.AI project, supported by Omidyar Network and Einhorn Collaborative. Co-led by Jonathan Teubner and HFH Fellow Ron Ivey, HumanConnection.AI project hosted a salon in San Francisco that brought together leaders from some of the companies building some of the most popular AI chatbots, including Replika’s CEO Eugenia Kuyda and the head of product policy at OpenAI, investors from Bloomberg Beta, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Preston Werner Ventures, to discuss with MIT’s Sherry Turkle and other leading social scientists and researchers how we might orient these new social technologies for human flourishing. This latter project emerged from conversations at the Building Connected Communities conference co-hosted by the Human Flourishing Program, Foundation for Social Connection, and Healthy Places by Design in late 2023 that brought together over 150 community leaders, practitioners, and policymakers, including the US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.
Contact Dr. Jonathan Teubner at: jteubner@fas.harvard.edu or Reece Brown at: rbrown@hks.harvard.edu to get in touch.
