Working definition. Humanity names a biological kinship and a moral relation: the shared, diverse, vulnerable condition through which people become answerable to one another.
Inherited meaning
Humanism placed human dignity, reason, and flourishing at the centre of thought, while later critiques exposed how narrowly “the human” had often been defined. Humanity is therefore not a fixed ideal type; it is an expanding promise never yet equally realised.
Meaning in the imagination economy
The question after AI is not whether machines can imitate human outputs. It is what humans choose to become when familiar performances no longer distinguish them. Humanity appears in embodiment, dependency, care, mortality, meaning, responsibility, and the capacity to make a world answerable to more than efficiency.
What changes in practice
Refuse designs that reduce people to predictable inputs or obstacles. Protect dignity, relationship, rest, ambiguity, and the right not to perform machine-like competence.