Wamkelekile, Welkom
UCT Flourish Lab: AI and human flourishing
25 March 2026 | Story Supplied. Photo iStock. Read time 2 min.
The Centre for Wellbeing and Flourishing at the University of Cape Town (UCT) will host the UCT Flourish Lab: AI and Human Flourishing on 1 and 2 April 2026 – a two-day initiative exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping human cognition, decision-making, education, and well-being.
Designed as a reflective, dialogue-based space, the lab moves beyond the format of a traditional conference or technical workshop. It brings together academic, professional, and student contributors to examine the human implications of increasingly complex, technology-mediated environments.
Day 1 features invited contributions from academic staff, researchers, and practitioners. The programme progresses across multiple layers of analysis, including first principles of judgement and cognition, decision-making and performance, internal psychological processes, institutional responsibility, and applied practices of attention and meaning making.
Day 2 centres student-led presentations, foregrounding lived experience and extending the conversation into domains such as identity, relationships, access, and broader societal dynamics.
Structured progression
Together, the two days create a structured progression from conceptual exploration to applied reflection, enabling a deeper engagement with what it means to think, decide, and act well in an AI-shaped world.
Sean Abrahams, the strategic founding lead of the centre, will open the Lab with “The Seligman Proof: A First Principle for AI-Mediated Appraisal”, introducing a framework for understanding how human judgement can remain grounded, evidence-consistent, and future-oriented in increasingly complex environments.
“Flourishing occurs when an individual’s appraisal of events moves toward greater alignment with reality.”
“Flourishing occurs when an individual’s appraisal of events moves toward greater alignment with reality, becoming more evidence-consistent, less distorted, and more capable of generating viable future pathways,” Abrahams said.
The UCT Flourish Lab approaches AI not only as a technological development, but as a fundamentally human and cognitive question, one that requires sustained attention to how meaning, judgement, and flourishing are understood and practiced.
The Lab will take place virtually on 1 and 2 April 2026 SAST.
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