Dangerous and deceptive anthropomorphic designs should be prohibited
so that human relationships are best positioned to remain the primary source of connection in our lives.
Preserving What Makes Us Human
Development and Meaning in the Age of AI
What makes us uniquely human? And how do we preserve our humanity in the age of AI?
Five Core Mandates for the Age of AI
Center for Humane Technology convened a working group of leading experts across law, technology, and philosophy to examine where AI genuinely helps us and where it costs us; whether and how this technology differs from technologies of the past; how it is shaping some of the most intimate and important parts of our lives; and what researchers, policymakers, and culture must do to protect fundamental pillars of human life.
Center for Humane Technology, along with this report’s panel of experts, present five core mandates that should guide AI design, deployment, and governance in order to preserve our humanity:
AI products should prompt our thinking instead of defaulting to thinking for us
so that we prevent cognitive atrophy and preserve our capacity for judgment.
Our thoughts and emotional states should not be surveilled or steered by AI
so that we preserve our ability to think freely and with privacy.
AI companies should not copy or use our identity without consent
so that we maintain our individuality, dignity, and safety in the world.
AI systems should be built to augment, not replace, human work
so that humans retain access to the work that gives our lives purpose.
Together, these mandates point to a higher-order shift: companies that build products reshaping how we think, relate, and become owe the public a fundamental duty of care. In other words, they have a legal and moral obligation to take reasonable steps to keep our humanity safe.
Background and Key Takeaways
Since OpenAI debuted ChatGPT in late 2022, and a wave of companies rushed to follow, general purpose AI has rapidly spread through society and changed the texture of everyday life. From companion chatbots to workplace productivity tools to image generators, AI may be providing entertainment and speeding up tasks, but it’s also slowly reshaping how we relate to one another, how we think, how we work, and even how we form our innermost beliefs — in other words, the fundamentals of human experience. These impacts have been unfolding faster than our ability to name what is happening to us, much less defend against it. The arrival of AI has also raised novel questions across research, law, and philosophy about what needs to be protected as we continue to live with this technology.
In April 2026, our panel of leading experts examined five pillars of fundamental humanity:
Relationships
Cognitive capacities
Inner worlds
Identities
Work and contributions
In exploring how AI affects these pillars, the following throughlines emerged across all five domains:
Intangible abilities underpin our humanity.
The capacity to reflect, to exercise agency and intuition, to be vulnerable and embodied, and to form our own judgments, among other abilities, are what make us human. And while AI can give the perception of demonstrating these capacities, it cannot replace them. Therefore, when AI erodes these intangible capacities, we risk losing what makes us uniquely human.
Friction is an essential element of our humanity.
Friction is the effort, difficulty, and discomfort that meaningful things require of us. Our relationships, our ability to problem solve, and our contributions to society all contain — and even require — friction. It’s friction that makes these things feel earned — and what’s earned through effort and difficulty carries a worth that is particularly meaningful.
Preserve processes, not just outcomes.
Process is the path we take to reach an outcome — the act of doing, not just the final product. When we partake in a process, we gain not just the outcome, but everything the act of the process builds in us. Working through different processes not only enables childhood development, it also helps build resilience, and grants adults meaningful, fulfilling lives
Download The Report
Inside this report across all five pillars, you’ll read about:
• Why these pillars matter and the research behind them
• How AI is affecting these pillars
• The research, regulatory, and philosophical gaps that exist
• The norms, policies, and education that need to happen in our new age
About The Working Group
Melodi Dinçer
Director, Digital Likeness Initiatives, University of California, Los Angeles
Caroline Emmer De Albuquerque Green
Director of Research and Head of Public Engagement, Institute for Ethics in AI, Oxford University
Nita Farahany
Robinson O. Everett Distinguished Professor of Law, Professor of Philosophy, Duke University
Ann Kristin Glenster
Founder, LOGOS, University of Cambridge
Edward Harcourt
Director, Institute for Ethics in AI, Oxford University
Clare Huntington
Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law, Columbia University
Molly Kinder
Expert on AI and Work
Alex Pascal
Executive Director, Berkman Klein Center, Harvard University
Brett G. Scharffs
Rex E. Lee Chair and Professor of Law; Director, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University
Anna Su
Jackman Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
Zahra Takshid
Associate Professor of Law, Wayne State University
Rebecca Winthrop
Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Universal Education, the Brookings Institution
