This course explores what makes us human - and how those human capacities enable a life well lived. As AI shapes how we think, choose, and relate, the course asks where emerging technologies can support human growth, what should remain distinctly human, and what can be responsibly automated. Human flourishing is examined through five interdependent domains: discovery, pursuit, health, impact, and savoring. Each reflects a core human capacity now being reshaped - sometimes productively, sometimes problematically - by new technologies. Students assess where AI can extend human capability and where its use erodes judgment, agency, or depth. Through workshops and dialogue with pioneers and operators in the field, students develop a nuanced understanding of how AI can enhance professional, personal, and interpersonal growth. Rather than reading a single book, students create one. Each student writes a 1,GSBGEN 000-word chapter that begins with a clear, personal definition of human flourishing grounded in their values and real constraints, then reflects on what their experiment revealed about themselves and about the limits and possibilities of AI as a thinking partner. These chapters form a living class anthology. By the end of the course, students should be able to articulate what flourishing means for them in concrete terms, engage with AI as a thinking partner with sophistication and restraint, and exercise sound judgment about when to lean on technology, when to resist it, and when to rely on human relationships and their own convictions. The course is intentionally ambitious. Its aim is not only to sharpen how students think about AI, but to clarify what they believe is worth cultivating - and protecting - as the world changes.
3 units · GSB Pass/Fail
This course explores what makes us human - and how those human capacities enable a life well lived. As AI shapes how we think, choose, and relate, the course asks where emerging technologies can support human growth, what should remain distinctly human, and what can be responsibly automated. Human flourishing is examined through five interdependent domains: discovery, pursuit, health, impact, and savoring. Each reflects a core human capacity now being reshaped - sometimes productively, sometimes problematically - by new technologies. Students assess where AI can extend human capability and where its use erodes judgment, agency, or depth. Through workshops and dialogue with pioneers and operators in the field, students develop a nuanced understanding of how AI can enhance professional, personal, and interpersonal growth. Rather than reading a single book, students create one. Each student writes a 1,000-word chapter that begins with a clear, personal definition of human flourishing grounded in their values and real constraints, then reflects on what their experiment revealed about themselves and about the limits and possibilities of AI as a thinking partner. These chapters form a living class anthology. By the end of the course, students should be able to articulate what flourishing means for them in concrete terms, engage with AI as a thinking partner with sophistication and restraint, and exercise sound judgment about when to lean on technology, when to resist it, and when to rely on human relationships and their own convictions. The course is intentionally ambitious. Its aim is not only to sharpen how students think about AI, but to clarify what they believe is worth cultivating - and protecting - as the world changes.
Offered in Winter 2027 at Stanford University.