Humanist Accelerationism
h/acc
The world is moving faster than at any point in human history and technology is accelerating.
As I sit here in April 2026, updating the “AI Guide” for my company, Global Admissions, I am struck by how much of our daily lives is now mediated by AI and how this is going to change everything.
In the tech circles of X and Silicon Valley, you’ll see there are multiple different tribes of people. Some are arguing for increasing accleration of technology, others to slow down so that things can be protected.
You might often see people identifying as e/acc (effective accelerationism). They want to floor the gas pedal of technological progress, and this is largely driven by competition - we have to otherwise we will lose.
The counter argument to that is people who want to slow down this acceleration to regulate and do things more slowly so we can limit the mitigate the risks.
But there is a synthesis of those two movements and that is h/acc - a Humanist Accelerationism
Technology should accelerate at breakneck speed, but we need to accelerate the capability of humans at the same rate or more than the technological curve.
The reason many fear this acceleration is that our current economic incentives are distorted. We forget that economics started as a Philosophy. Adam Smith was a philosopher. It is only recently that is has become more mathematical and scientific.
The goal of economics is not unlimited growth. The goal of economics is - what kind of system do we want to live in?
What is missing from e/acc?
Our current systems incentivises e/acc and doesn’t incentivise h/acc.
In GDP, human are measured as a cost, and AI as an investment - so you can imagine how that will incentivise behaviour.
We are not building enough housing, this lack of supply increases prices and boosts the economy, increases the economic baseline costs for living reduces birth rates, and robots will come in to solve population decline.
We are investing in building out data centers but not schools or learning and upgrading.
The economy and technology should serve humans. We should not be the biological bootloader for a machine future; we should be the species that uses machines to finally realise what it means to be fully human.
Human Flourishing and Transcendence is the goal.
In an h/acc framework, the AI is the tool. It makes the human faster and stronger, but the human remains the pilot, and humanity is very much the center.
Humanist Accelerationism is the belief that we should use every tool at our disposal - AI GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), agentic platforms, and global finance - to reach our maximum potential.
The goal is human and civilisational flourishing.
But this is not just a moral argument, it is actually the inevitable future. There is something that is valuable in humans that technology can’t replicate. A nation of flourishing and rapidly improving humans will have a huge advantage compared to one that is left to AI and machines.