One reader recently exemplified this rising anti-humanism by writing in to my philosophical advice column, Your Mileage May Vary<\/a>, and telling me bluntly: \u201cI\u2019m disgusted to be a human.\u201d I responded by reminding them<\/a> that hating on humanity is neither a new nor an enlightened position. It lets us off the hook too easily, because it expects nothing of us.<\/p>\n But I\u2019m also aware that this distaste for humanity isn\u2019t only motivating old-school misanthropy these days.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also motivating transhumanism, the movement that says we should use tech to proactively evolve our species into Homo sapiens 2.0. Transhumanists \u2014 who span the gamut from Silicon Valley tech bros<\/a> to academic philosophers<\/a> \u2014 do want to keep some version of humanity going, but definitely not running on the current hardware. They imagine us with chips in our brains<\/a>, or with AI telling us how to make moral decisions more objectively<\/a>, or with digitally uploaded minds that live forever in the cloud. All of this will someday, they assert, usher us into a utopian future where we transcend suffering and become as perfect and immortal as gods.<\/p>\n To better understand why a distaste for humanity is driving some people into the arms of transhumanism these days, I reached out to Shannon Vallor<\/a>, a philosopher of technology at the University of Edinburgh and author of The AI Mirror<\/a>. Vallor is a devoted humanist \u2014 but not a naive one. To her, being pro-human doesn\u2019t mean being anti-technology. We talked about how classical humanism has failed to offer a compelling vision for the 21st century and beyond \u2014 and how we can still do better. Our conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.<\/p>\n What\u2019s driving transhumanism to become more popular these days?<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019re living in a world that digital technologies and social media have made more fragmented and alienating. We are busier, more tired, more lonely, more uncertain than ever about the future and what it holds. So we\u2019re at a low point in our ability to place faith in our fellow humans. And instead of looking at the deeper causes of that \u2014 the breakdown of the social fabric and of institutions and of local networks of care \u2014 there is an attempt to normalize and naturalize anti-humanism.<\/p>\n It\u2019s an attempt to treat it not as a symptom of some disease or malaise in society \u2014 which is how I see it \u2014 but rather to treat it as a new, more enlightened frame of mind. To say: If you\u2019re a humanist, you\u2019re somehow stuck in the past, you have this overly romantic attachment to humans, you\u2019re committing a fallacy of exceptionalism.<\/p>\n And there is a history of humanism being inappropriately exceptionalist \u2014 for example, imagining that other living things can\u2019t have feelings or intelligence or moral standing. So as we\u2019ve surpassed those errors, it\u2019s very easy to think: Oh, you just go one step further and decide that humans don\u2019t really need to be part of the story, or they don\u2019t need to be writing the story. And if you quiver or flinch at the notion of machines writing the story of the future, that\u2019s just your parochial attachment.<\/p>\n Right, this is the accusation of \u201cspeciesism\u201d that we hear a lot these days. <\/strong><\/p>\n Exactly. At a very superficial intellectual level, this is all very plausible and appealing and seems very enlightened, right? But it\u2019s rooted in a deep misconception of what it is to be human.<\/p>\n The reason why it\u2019s mistaken for humans to place themselves at the center of all value and to see other living beings as mere tools has nothing to do with humans somehow being unimportant, or humans somehow being insignificant in the broad story. It\u2019s rather a failure to understand that to be human is to be dependent upon this much bigger living system, and our value is inseparable and intertwined with the value of other living things. It\u2019s not that humans are something to be cast aside.<\/p>\n Have a question you want me to answer in the next Your Mileage May Vary advice column?<\/strong><\/p>\n Do you think the classical humanism that we\u2019ve inherited from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment era is enough to meet the current moment? Or do we need a new humanism?<\/strong><\/p>\n No. I do think we need a new humanism. And one of the reasons, of course, is because classical humanism, in addition to suffering from the flaws of speciesism, had a vision of the human that was itself heavily gendered and racialized. It was very much an ideal that is both unattainable and undesirable in its naive form: the idea of the individual, rational agent that is entirely self-determining and surpassing the more basic networks of care and concern that hold communities together. This Enlightenment version of humanism, which carried with it many of the flaws of European Enlightenment thinking more broadly \u2014 that\u2019s not the kind of humanism that\u2019s going to carry us into a sustainable future.<\/p>\n The most common pro-human response to AI that I see nowadays is this style of humanism that tries to say there are <\/strong>certain fixed traits that make humans unique<\/strong><\/a>, and that tries to locate value only in humans as they currently exist. It says: Let\u2019s use tech to alleviate problems like disease but not try to augment the species.<\/strong><\/p>\n To me, that feels insufficient as a guide. <\/strong>Because we\u2019re all already transhuman in some sense, right? \u201cHuman\u201d has never been a static category. Homo sapiens has always been evolving and augmenting itself, with everything from <\/strong>meditation and fasting<\/strong><\/a> to eyeglasses and antidepressants. A humanism that refuses to recognize that feels like it doesn\u2019t offer a compelling vision for the future.<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s the naive version of humanism. It\u2019s the idea that there\u2019s this blueprint for what a human is and that somehow technology, or any things that change us, take us away from that blueprint, when in fact we\u2019ve been changing ourselves with language, with tools, with architecture, with culture, from the moment we climbed down from the trees.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to ground ourselves in an ethos of sustainability, of care, of solidarity and mutual aid and repair of the systems that we need in order to have a future. That can be its own philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n I wrote about this in The AI Mirror, where I talked about the existentialist Jose Ortega y Gasset\u2019s notion of \u201cautofabrication\u201d<\/a> [literally, self-making]. From the beginning, humans have had to invent and reinvent themselves anew again and again. If there is anything unique about the human, it\u2019s that as far as we know there\u2019s no other creature that has to get up in the morning and decide if it\u2019s going to live differently than it did the day before, or if it\u2019s going to maintain the commitments and promises it\u2019s made to itself or others.<\/p>\n This kind of identity construction is something that our cognitive makeup has given us, both as a blessing and a bit of a curse. It\u2019s the responsibility to choose \u2014 and to not fall back on this idea that there\u2019s a blueprint for what a human is supposed to be and that we\u2019re just supposed to follow that blueprint.<\/p>\n I think people really crave a positive vision for the future that they can get behind. To you, what is the positive, humanist-but-not-naive-humanist vision? <\/strong><\/p>\n Sometimes I think about this demand for a positive vision and I think about how unfair and unreasonable that demand is when the mere homeostasis of life on this planet, and of human life, is fragile. For a being whose future is threatened, survival is a positive future! Maintaining the strength and resilience of our form of life is a victory. And in a way, I think there\u2019s a danger in the desire to immediately leap past that.<\/p>\n We have to look at the fundamental structural causes of the scarcity we face, and see the positive, exciting, mobilizing, motivating work as addressing those deficiencies. We should be able to be excited about doing that work.<\/p>\n I have two simultaneous reactions to this. The first is: Yes, we should be able to get excited about that. And I think if we had a cultural narrative that taught us that just the dynamism of being alive is itself the gift, we\u2019d be better placed to think of sustainability as the thing to treasure. <\/strong><\/p>\n My second reaction is: But people have this persistent hunger for a story about how we can overcome suffering and make things better than ever before \u2014 a transcendence narrative!<\/strong><\/p>\n And that\u2019s okay. What I want to say is, if you meet people\u2019s basic needs, both as individuals and in community, they will naturally generate the instruments of transcendence.<\/p>\n When you give people the ability to be free from fear and free from imminent threat, and you get them out of this feeling that they\u2019re in a lifeboat situation \u2014 that\u2019s when people\u2019s creative energy really kicks in.<\/p>\n I\u2019m someone who loves animals \u2014 I\u2019m a big birder, I\u2019m obsessed with snorkeling, I just love exploring different kinds of minds. So I could feel excited about a future where we have a multitude of diverse intelligences \u2014 animals, conscious AIs, augmented humans, etc. Do you think part of a positive vision for the future could be an expanded space of different kinds of minds? Does that excite you at all?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah! Look, I\u2019m a giant sci-fi nerd. I spent my whole childhood living in imaginary worlds with other kinds of minds: talking animals, various hybrid human-animal creations, robots, artificial intelligences. There is nothing about my humanism that blocks a future where humans share the planet with many more kinds of minds than we have today.<\/p>\n What I resent is the exploitation of that excitement by tech companies to sell and impose harmful, unsafe technologies that pretend to be minds, that are disguised as minds. Claude is not [a mind]. Claude is a language model built to roleplay that.<\/p>\n I have no assurance that it\u2019s possible to create a machine mind. But I also have no principled reason to think it\u2019s impossible. And the vision that you described sounds wonderful. The problem is that it\u2019s very easy for the AI industry to say: Ah, but that\u2019s what we\u2019re already giving you!<\/p>\n You said <\/strong>in a talk last year<\/strong><\/a> that you think maybe we should take a break from a certain kind of philosophizing about humanity\u2019s future. <\/strong>But looking around at the political landscape, that feels like a luxury we can\u2019t afford. <\/strong>The <\/strong>tech broligarchs<\/strong><\/a> have links to the authoritarian right. Some of them want to <\/strong>escape the control of democratic governments, so they\u2019re trying to create their own sovereign colonies \u2014 whether that\u2019s space colonies or \u201cnetwork states.\u201d <\/strong>Given their influence, taking a break from trying to steer the future feels like capitulation at a time when capitulation is very dangerous. <\/strong><\/p>\n I hear you. It does seem very dangerous to say that there shouldn\u2019t be some kind of counter-philosophical-movement opposing that. But when I was saying that maybe we need to pause, what I was speaking of is the kinds of philosophical preoccupations that jump ahead of the obvious needs of the moment and serve as a perpetual distraction from those needs.<\/p>\n There is a certain kind of philosophy that I think we need to perhaps put on hold: It\u2019s the philosophy of forget the present, forget the problems of the moment, think bigger, think about the universal point of view.<\/p>\n What I\u2019m suggesting is that we need to ground ourselves in an ethos of sustainability, of care, of solidarity and mutual aid and repair of the systems that we need in order to have a future. That can be its own philosophy.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not a utopian kind of move. Utopia is very often used as an instrument of authoritarianism and it\u2019s used as a way to rip people away from their present commitments and needs, and to distract them with a dream that relieves the pressure to address our current circumstances. I think that\u2019s the opposite of what we need right now.<\/p>\n Yeah, this is the classic point made about Christendom \u2014 how it tells us: Just focus on getting to a good afterlife, don\u2019t expect anything good from your life on Earth. <\/strong>Malcolm X called it \u201cpie in the sky and heaven in the hereafter.\u201d <\/strong>It\u2019s one of the ways I often feel like transhumanism is weirdly doing Christendom\u2019s bidding.<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh absolutely, 100 percent. It\u2019s strangely regressive, right? It\u2019s bringing us back precisely to that worldview: Don\u2019t worry about the feudal circumstances that you are presently in, because that\u2019s going to be a distant memory soon, when the world of infinite abundance is delivered unto you. That story was effective for millennia. But it was one that we ultimately managed to break ourselves free from.<\/p>\n Right, and that was one of the genuinely great innovations of humanism: Let\u2019s not just put all our faith in the beautiful hereafter, but let\u2019s actually care about human lives here on Earth, now.<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019ve read 1 article in the last month<\/p>\n Here at Vox, we’re unwavering in our commitment to covering the issues that matter most to you \u2014 threats to democracy, immigration, reproductive rights, the environment, and the rising polarization across this country.<\/p>\n Our mission is to provide clear, accessible journalism that empowers you to stay informed and engaged in shaping our world. By becoming a Vox Member, you directly strengthen our ability to deliver in-depth, independent reporting that drives meaningful change.<\/p>\n We rely on readers like you \u2014 join us.<\/p>\n Swati Sharma<\/p>\n Vox Editor-in-Chief<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lot of humans are feeling very down on humanity these days. Maybe you\u2019ve met them. Or maybe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[3500,291,289,290,18,4863,19,3536,17,103649,82,29604],"class_list":{"0":"post-489352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-ai","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-future-perfect","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-innovation","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-living-in-an-ai-world","18":"tag-technology","19":"tag-your-mileage-may-vary"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Swati](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779030429_14_image.png\"\/)
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