Impromptu: Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI In higher education, we make the distinction between the arts and the sciences, typically characterizing the former as the most essential form of human expression—the realm where we explore fundamental emotions like love, courage, anger, and mercy. But which arts aren’t enabled, amplified, and extended by pencils, printing presses, paint, pianos, microphones, com- puters, and other artifacts of technology? This dynamic doesn’t just apply to the arts, but to any kind of communication, to the work that forms the basis of our careers, and to most other ways in which we find and create meaning. Whether in work, art, religion, or community, we have far more ways to find our purpose and create meaningful lives for ourselves than we did 600 years ago, or 300 years ago, or even thirty years ago, because we have far more tools with which to do so. With the rapid evolution of technologies like AI, robotics, and synthetic biology, people are worried that machines will dis- place human beings, and that as we try to adapt to the changes brought on by these technologies, key aspects of humanity and human agency will diminish or disappear altogether. Given that humanity’s primary narrative has been one of con- tinuous change and progress through technological innovation, however, the people of 2060 will arguably be more human than us, not less—specifically because of the changes they’ve undergone. Of course, along with their different behaviors, they’ll also be using their new technologies to express aspects of humanity that are very familiar to us. Electric guitars and vinyl records 202