AI + Human Flourishing Initiative

Now, during this critical moment when humans and emerging AI technologies are being shaped and adapted symbiotically, this research initiative organizes interdisciplinary expertise to address global challenges to flourishing humans in the age of AI.

The AI + Human Flourishing research initiative investigates the bidirectional loop of how AI technologies can enhance human flourishing, and how lived human knowledge about flourishing, can more deeply inform alignment strategies at the human-AI interface. The initiative takes a twofold approach: (1) Experimenting with how emerging technologies of intelligence can be leveraged to enhance human flourishing; and (2) Learning from human contemplation and wisdom to live better with AI. As such, this initiative intersects humanistic and empirical research at the triangulation of emerging technologies of intelligence + lived experience + the contemplative sciences. 

Given that dilemmas of the AI age are too complex for a single discipline, the initiative recognizes the imperative of an integrated transdisciplinary approach. Facilitated by the Contemplative Sciences Center, faculty and trainees from across the University and beyond foster overlapping domains of research, innovation, and dialogue. Efforts across domains query, formulate, and actualize critical paradigms to advance research, inform human-AI coding and behaviors, and contribute to vectoring AI and humans towards flourishing.

The initiative convenes an interdisciplinary research interest group of faculty and trainees at the University with shared interests in AI-driven interventions for wellbeing and spirituality to build collaborative networks and establish this emerging research area.

For more information on AI Research, see AI@UVA. 

To get involved, contact Contemplative Sciences Center Research: circl@virginia.edu.