That feeling you’re having about AI? It’s telling you something important.

Here at the midpoint of 2026, it’s become even more impossible to look away from artificial intelligence. The headlines are constant – AI-driven layoffs, mandates to adopt AI at work, community backlash over data center buildouts, advertisements for AI at every turn. But beneath the noise, the conversation itself has changed. Not long ago, the discourse swung between narratives of utopia and doom: AI would either solve our greatest problems or render us obsolete. In both stories, humans were an afterthought.

Today, humans are moving to the center of the story. Brands have begun marketing their work as “made by humans.” Polling shows Americans growing skeptical of AI and calling for legal restrictions on the technology. Corporations like Ford and IBM are rehiring workers after layoffs, vowing to invest in “human capital.” Even the CEOs of leading AI companies have changed their tune, acknowledging that an AI future will still depend on human expertise. Anthropic’s latest ad is emblematic of this new posture, asking how we can ensure that AI benefits “the majority of people.”

This shift isn’t surprising. People are not reacting to predictions anymore. They’re reacting to experience. AI is now part of how we work, think, and relate, and the line between what the technology does and who we fundamentally are is starting to blur. AI may be helping us in certain spheres – streamlining menial work tasks, accelerating scientific discovery. But it’s also reshaping the more intimate parts of our lives: how we connect with each other, how we think for ourselves, how we come to know who we are. This raises uncomfortable questions about what the future holds.

This collective unease contains wisdom. It’s a signal that something is at risk in society, something we need to explore and protect. That’s why CHT launched our work on “AI and What Makes Us Human” – an examination of what AI is changing in us, and what we cannot afford to lose. We identified five domains of human life most exposed to AI erosion: our relationships, our work and contributions, our cognitive capacities, our inner worlds, and our identities. We also emphasized that what can feel like separate problems – chatbots and kids, AI and jobs, AI and cognition – are actually facets of a single challenge to our humanity. And the stakes are only compounding. The capacities that AI is currently eroding – clear thinking, real connection, shared understanding – are the very capacities we will need to evaluate and govern all the challenges to come.

When people push back against AI, they are reasserting that humans matter. And while it’s tempting to boil all of this down into a story of “humans versus AI,” this risks trapping us yet again in the very promise-versus-peril thinking that plagued the last three years of the generative AI revolution. And that framing missed a deeper truth: AI is not an invading force we can repel. It is already woven into our daily lives. The real question isn’t whether we are for or against the technology – it’s about how AI is changing the human experience, and what, within that experience, we are determined to preserve.

Clarifying this unease around a new technology, articulating why it matters, and pointing to what is driving it is part of CHT’s DNA. When social media’s harms first surfaced over ten years ago, the public debate fixated on symptoms like screen time, or one app, or one feature. But we looked beneath the debate at the incentives driving social media’s design: specifically, business models that profited from capturing user attention, no matter the human cost. We also validated the gut-level feelings people were having when they used these manipulative platforms. We connected the visceral experience of feeling glued to your phone, scrolling, and sensing that your mental health was deteriorating to clear tech design choices, and then to the systems fueling those designs.

This lens onto technology and its felt impacts is why our work has outlasted any single platform or story. And it’s the lens we bring to this new work with AI. Just like with social media, the questions raised by AI are not, at their core, about any one chatbot or company. They are about the incentives shaping how this technology is built and deployed, and whether AI will be designed for or against human needs.

Our thinking is resonating. When we published our first piece on “AI and What Makes Us Human”, we heard from you: you told us about how AI is showing up in your own life, touching the things that make you and the people you love who you are. Responses from people like you and other members of the public confirmed what we suspected: people do not need convincing that something essential is at stake with AI. What they need is language for it, and a path forward.

Since the launch, we’ve been working on both. CHT convened a working group of leading experts across law, technology, and philosophy – from institutions including Harvard, Oxford, Brookings, Columbia, and Duke – to define and explore what kinds of legal protections we’ll need to preserve our humanity in the age of AI. We also continued to bring these ideas to new audiences. Camille Carlton, our Senior Director of Strategy and Impact, took to the TEDx stage in Miami to lay out how AI is eroding the pillars of our humanity, how we are reckoning with the “messy middle” of the AI revolution, and what we can do to protect the important parts of human experience. We look forward to sharing that talk with you soon.

And this is just the beginning.

In the coming months, you’ll see “AI and What Makes Us Human” out in the world: on streets and on screens, through voices you’re familiar with and some you might not expect. Through this campaign, we will give this feeling you’re having around AI a name so that it can be better understood, shared, and pushed back on. We will remind you that these uncanny feelings you’re having around AI are not your fault, or something you must muscle through; they’re a byproduct of how this technology is designed. And those designs can be changed. In fact, they must be changed. So alongside naming the problem, we will give you a path: ways to protect yourself and your family now, and ways to demand the structural change this moment requires.

We will also publish research from our working group that defines what must be protected in the age of AI. Every technological revolution has spurred society to develop new protections. When the Industrial Revolution transformed labor, we didn’t just inspect factories. We enshrined workers’ rights. Naming the right to privacy in the late 1800s turned scattered concerns around the Kodak camera into a set of laws and protections. AI demands the same depth of response. That’s why our working group has spent the last several months asking the deeper questions: what is the foundational right of this era, and what should the first laws built around it look like? The report from our working group will lay the groundwork for a longer exploration to turn what must be protected into actionable protections themselves. This will be a shared foundation that scholars, policymakers, and the public can build on.

And we will keep getting these cutting-edge frameworks to where decisions get made. In the months ahead, we’ll brief policymakers and regulators on what protecting our humanity requires. We’ll work with technologists on humane design. And we’ll equip partners across communities to carry this work into their own world.

This is an effort that involves all of us, and through “AI and What Makes Us Human,” we intend to give as many people as possible the language, the evidence, and the tools to take part.

Since our founding in 2018, CHT’s role has largely been about translation – taking what’s complex in technology and making it clear enough to ignite transformation. Here in the middle of 2026, we can feel a surge of momentum to protect what makes us human, as the public awakens to what’s at risk with AI. AI threatens to erode our humanity, yes; but as we are seeing in state capitols, community town halls, impassioned speeches, company meetings, and our day-to-day conversations with each other, people are waking up to what’s at stake and demanding something better. The future is still ours to shape.

So stay close. Share this work with someone who’s sensing the same things you’re sensing. And in the meantime, trust that uneasy feeling around AI. It’s telling you something important.

We’re working to empower policymakers, technologists, and everyday people to guide technology toward the public good. If you value our work and want to support it, consider donating.

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