Emotional Intelligence and Human Identity at the Dawn of AI Networks

GenAI researcher Katherine Elkins presents the latest developments in AI capabilities, highlighting both the challenges and opportunities for human flourishing. Drawing on her work at the US AI Safety Institute, the IBM/Notre Dame Tech Ethics Lab, and Meta’s Open Innovation AI Research Community (OIAIRC), she outlines how agentic behavior, reasoning, and emotional intelligence upend previous notions of human exceptionalism. These recent advances have sparked new avenues of AI research that incorporate lessons from the behavioral sciences. At the same time, imagining possible futures necessitates tackling AI safety, rethinking the future of work, and reconceiving what it means to be human in the age of AI.

Katherine Elkins is a leading voice on generative AI and its ethical implications for society. A professor at Kenyon College, she co-created one of the first human-centered AI curricula and pioneered methods for analyzing emotional patterns in narrative. Her research and industry collaborations shape how we understand and develop AI systems that serve human needs.

Part of the “Possible Futures: AI and Human Experience” long-term Kahn Institute project, organized by Luca Capogna, Mathematics, and Susan Levin, Philosophy.