Finding our humanist renaissance

We are living in one of the most remarkable—and disorienting—moments in human history. Technology is accelerating faster than our ability to adapt, and in the process, it’s pulling us further away from the very qualities that make us human: our attention, our relationships, our ability to think deeply, to discern what’s true, to feel fully, and to connect with real depth.

I see this from every angle of my life. As an investor in the future of work, I watch companies redesign jobs around automation while workers struggle to keep up with the pace of change. As an educator, I see students whose curiosity and ambition is collapsing under the weight of constant stimulation and shrinking attention spans. And as a mother of two boys, I see firsthand how childhood is being rewired by screens—how schools still operate on outdated models while digital life shapes their sense of self perhaps even more powerfully than their classrooms.

The data reflects what many of us feel intuitively. Attention spans are dropping. Anxiety and loneliness are rising. Screen time is at an all-time high. Social trust is at an all-time low. Even our ability to read long-form content—or sit with our own thoughts—is eroding. We’ve entered what many call the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but unlike the revolutions that came before, this one is transforming not just our tools, but our cognition, our behavior, and the architecture of our inner lives.

And so the question becomes: How do we reclaim our humanity in a world that’s rapidly automating it away?

What we can learn from the Renaissance

I’ve recently become obsessed with understanding how civilizations have found their way through moments like this—moments when the world changes so profoundly that old assumptions can no longer hold. Every transformative era in history has been shaped by people willing to question the systems around them. These periods of cultural rebirth redefine how we learn, how we work, how we create, and how we connect. And one of the clearest examples of this is the Renaissance.

The Renaissance was born during a time of disorientation, rapid technological shifts, and collapsing institutions. People felt unmoored from the structures that had defined the medieval world. Yet instead of surrendering to uncertainty, they turned deliberately toward the depth of human potential. They embraced humanism, placing curiosity, creativity, and the dignity of the individual at the center of cultural life. They revived classical wisdom, returning to Greek and Roman texts for guidance on ethics, learning, art, and civic life. Artists pioneered perspective and realism, scientists advanced empirical inquiry, and educators reimagined how people should learn and think. And with the arrival of the printing press, ideas could spread faster than ever before.

They rebuilt their world by putting the human being—our imagination, our intellect, our capacity for meaning—back at the center. I believe we are standing at a similar threshold now.

Interviewing Dr. Niobe Way about her book “Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and our Culture”. Discussing how we deprioritize the soft skills in our culture.

Is AI here to bring us back to our Humanity?

In March 2023, when ChatGPT-4 was released I was terrified it would make things worse. But with curiosity I gave in to exploring its capabilities, limitations, and darkness. What surprised me was how clearly AI illuminated our irreplaceable value as humans. It can do many things but it can never be human.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because, I want to begin toying with an optimist conclusion for this strange dystopia we are living in. Perhaps AI has come to bring us back to our humanity.

My theory is that the knowledge system that has dominated our societies for centuries is being destroyed by AI. In a beautiful essay, Nicolas Michaelson argues that our current model—rooted in abstract, factual, and disembodied information, and validated through test scores, degrees, theories, white papers, and strategy decks, and reinforced by elite schools, knowledge jobs, and exclusive conferences—is becoming obsolete. AI can or will be able to do these things better than us. If this entire structure of work is eroding then the system that supports it may fall too. Which means a new system will need to emerge, one built around the deeply human qualities AI cannot replicate like empathy, discernment, intuition, and humility.

This is the foundation of what I am calling the humanist renaissance. A new way of being that will center around institutions and interactions that nurture and cultivate our humanity. It wont just emerge, we have to create it.

The purpose of this substack is to bring you glimpses of of the new human system. To show you its possible. I will explore what others are doing in this realm, share ideas and concepts I am wrestling with, and have conversations with all kinds of people building the humanist renaissance.

One quick analogy on what the transition might look like before I leave you today..

At 21 I studied abroad in Senegal. When I got there nearly everything felt foreign — the people, the heat, the food, the smells, the language. I remember the first night laying on the cot of the bed and breakfast drenched in my own sweat listening to the sounds of the night. In the morning when I woke up I decided I had to explore the beach we passed on our way in. As I proceeded down the red dirt road across the one lane highway I keep thinking this was stupid and I should turn back. But I kept going. When I arrived, the beach was empty. I took off my shoes, felt the sand between my toes, and waded into the water. Then I swam into the waves and floated on my back just feeling the opportunity before me. For a moment the fear dissolved and only beauty remained. And then, like a flash, it was gone.

As I moved through my time in Senegal, something magical happened. The moments of beauty grew longer, deeper, more lasting, until eventually, the uncomfortable became comfortable. This is my hope for the new human system. That what feels unfamiliar at first becomes a home we build together.

I hope you will join me. #humanistrenaissance