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I met Maria in the summer of 2025 at the Summer Program on Applied Rationality and Cognition (SPARC). She was an instructor; I was a first-year participant. Although we had only a three-hour one-on-one conversation, I admired her approach to knowledge and her deep desire to steer societal progress in the age of AI. After SPARC, we continued our discussions on a 2-person server, exploring our shared ethical standards, ways of knowing, and general goals, while debating our minor and major differences. Our talks often left me with the need to journal -- to scrutinize my own knowledge structures and let the conclusions of our arguments reshape my thinking. This compilation presents some of our conversations and my subsequent reflections in a structured, dialectic form, inspired by Plato’s The Republic. Unlike Plato, I try to enter each discussion with as few presumptions as possible, acting not as a teacher, but as an interviewer (or more precisely, an interrogator.)
Boldly titled The Human without Maria’s consent, this collection spans topics first sparked by fragments of our in-person conversation:
We are aware that our conversations may eventually reach beyond anthropocentric concerns. Yet I retain the title The Human, because this is not a study of humans, but an introspection into humanity -- humanity’s interaction with its surroundings, and its future paths, seen through the lens of two individuals. We do not claim to represent the human condition in full, but we believe in the power of this document to spark curiosity. We hope to inspire others to examine their own beliefs, ethics, and worldviews with similar fervor, and to popularize an uncommon form of intellectual friendship.
We present the discussions in the chronological order the questions first arose. When multiple questions branch from one response, we order them by when they were addressed. For questions or comments, please email huangxinyan_lola@outlook.com.