An education that keeps us human.
Convened at the Columbia Center for Sustainable Development, the Humanitas Project brings together a global network of educators, researchers and practitioners re-imagining what intelligence means in an age of powerful machines. We gather curricula, research and lived practice for the kind of education required to keep us deeply human, guided by a compass of moral and philosophical traditions from across the world. We open a global dialogue on these questions, and we place it in the hands of the young people whose lives and futures these machines are already shaping.
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Our mission.
Intelligence, properly understood, is not reducible to computation or optimization. It encompasses empathy, friendship, care and love: the very qualities that make genuine relationship possible.
Guided by our Compass, a set of moral and philosophical texts drawn from traditions across the world, this is a gathering of wise architects who are re-imagining intelligence as a human act rather than a machine output.
This moment demands that we resist the temptation to view artificial intelligence solely through a workforce lens, as a productivity mechanism to be optimized, and instead situate it within the broader political, economic and social order. The measure of any technology must be its fidelity to human dignity and the common good, and its animating values must be trust, love, justice and freedom.
For this, disarming AI is key: understanding how AI systems redistribute power, labour and environmental costs globally. The network gives particular attention to AI's material footprint, its energy, water and extraction, and to its entanglement with injustice felt first and hardest in the Global South.
What we work on.
01
Intelligence as a Human Act
We treat intelligence as empathy, care, judgment and love, not computation or optimization, and we measure any technology by its fidelity to human dignity and the common good.
02
The Political Economy of AI
We resist the workforce lens and examine how AI redistributes power, labour and cost across the world. This is the work of disarming AI.
03
AI's Material Footprint
We follow the physical cost of intelligence: the energy it burns, the water it drinks, and the minerals it extracts.
04
Climate Justice & the Global South
We attend to who bears these costs, and to AI's entanglement with climate injustice, felt first and hardest in the Global South.
Our members.
In its first season the network has brought together educators and researchers across several countries and continents, convening regular dialogues, publishing essays, and curating an open library of research and teaching. The work is organised as a public good: everything gathered here is freely available, and the network itself is the lasting output on which a shared future can build.
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Help us re-imagine intelligence.
The Humanitas Project grows by invitation and contribution. Whether you are an educator, a researcher, an institution, or a young person with a stake in the future, there is a place for you here.