What AI means for creativity, ownership, play, and human potential.
What Kind of People Do We Want to Become in the Age of AI?
Artificial intelligence is often framed as a technological challenge, but it is also a profoundly human one.
As AI becomes increasingly integrated into how we work, learn, create, and relate to one another, it is raising questions that extend far beyond technology itself. What does human agency look like in an age of intelligent machines? How might AI reshape our communities, our relationships, and our understanding of a good society?
“The debates that we’re beginning to roll out are debates not just about what kind of tools we want to use, but what kind of people we want to be,” he says.
At the same time, AI presents a unique challenge. “It’s also unique in the sense that we don’t actually fully control its development. What’s happening with LLMs is a kind of carefully controlled process by which the mathematical patterns are allowed to ‘grow’ in semi-autonomous ways. What genuinely no one understands is where this is actually going to go.”
At a moment when technological change is accelerating, Aspen Institute is bringing together leaders, thinkers, and practitioners to explore not only what AI can do, but what kind of future, and what kind of humanity, we want it to help shape.
What Does Bold Leadership Require Today?
We’re excited to share a new Aspen Institute film that captures a simple but powerful belief: progress begins with people. Watch to see how the Aspen Institute brings people together across differences to tackle society’s greatest challenges and create new possibilities for a better world.
Around the Institute
Artificial Inteligence Protecting Play in the Age of AI
Artificial intelligence is transforming sports, from biometric tracking to automated scouting. These tools can expand access to training and support coaches, but they also risk reducing young athletes to data points. What guardrails are needed to limit surveillance and protect the essence of play? Watch this insightful conversation
from the Project Play Summit 2026.
Artificial Inteligence The Art-ificial Mind: Creativity in the Age of AI
Artificial intelligence may be one of the most consequential technologies of our time, but creativity has been central to the human experience for millennia. Does AI enhance our creative potential or challenge it? At the Aspen Ideas Festival
, actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith, Harvard University professor Caroline Elkins, and Robert Wong, Vice President of Google Creative Lab, explored the future of creativity in the age of AI.
Artificial Inteligence How Do We Define AI?
Aspen Digital brought together legal scholars, policy advocates, and leading thinkers in technology to provide expert analyses on the most-influential definitions of AI including how they work, what they capture or exclude, and what tradeoffs they make. Read the publication here.
Artificial Inteligence Magnifica Humanitas: Catholic Thought for the Digital Age
Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnificent Humanity, explores the implications of artificial intelligence and calls for technology that advances human dignity and flourishing. In this conversation, leaders from philanthropy, religion, and technology examine the document’s vision for AI and its potential impact on society, policy, and the future of human well-being.
Watch the conversation.
Ideas The Return of Five Best Ideas
Curated by Aspen Institute editors, the Five Best newsletter highlights the most thought-provoking ideas shaping our world. During Aspen Ideas: Health and Aspen Ideas Festival, we'll publish a special pop-up edition featuring insights and takeaways from across the events. Subscribe here.
In the News
Artificial Inteligence StateScoopfeatured a new initiative, launched in partnership with Aspen Digital, to bring practical AI tools to emergency management.
Tech PCMag reported on Take9, a public service campaign founded by craig newmark philanthropies and led by Aspen Digital, and their new "Count Before You Click Campaign", a national public service cybersecurity campaign with Sesame Street's Count von Count to help people protect themselves from online frauds and scams.
