Ten years ago, the world paused and took notice when AlphaGo defeated world champion Lee Sedol in Seoul. It was a significant milestone in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning — sparking both hope and fear for the future of humanity.

 

Since then, the rapid rise of generative AI has led many to redirect their focus on capabilities less likely to be replaced by machines. This conversation subtly began to shift once again at the 2025 Yidan Prize Conference, when Professor Andrew Maynard invited us to reflect on the bigger question of what it means to be human and to radically rethink our approach to education.

 

Co-creating a future grounded in human connection and relationships

AI is changing how we work, learn, and organize our lives. Tasks long considered the key to academic success — memorization, routine problem-solving, and structured reasoning — are now increasingly automated. In an AI-accelerated world, our ability to build trust, bridge differences, resolve conflict, and make meaning collectively underpins the future of learning and education.

 

In the same hotel where the defining Go match took place, Professor Ju Ho Lee, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education of South Korea, kicked off a three-day convening centred around human connection. Co-hosted by the Yidan Prize Foundation and Yonsei University alongside the 2026 International Psychometric Society Meeting, the ‘Yidan Prize Conference Series – Seoul edition’ brought together leaders across domains and sectors to learn from one another and co-create pathways towards a future grounded in relational intelligence.

 

An interdisciplinary exploration of relational intelligence from Pre-K to Grey

Decades of research have shown that strong relationships predict happier, healthier lives. Building on the concept of ‘relational intelligence' coined by Isabelle Hau of Stanford Accelerator for Learning, the conference explored how we can better understand, measure, and nurture relational capacity at the individual, community, and systems levels.

 

Over three days in Seoul, experts engaged in cross-disciplinary sharing, workshops, and consensus-building activities, laying the foundation for future studies and practical application in the classroom and beyond. Drawing from experiences across global education, public health, policymaking, psychometrics, and evaluation, we examined four key questions:

• How can we effectively measure human connection across individuals, organizations, and societies?
• What are the key dimensions and indicators of healthy, meaningful relationships?
• How can AI and technology be thoughtfully integrated to support relational intelligence in diverse learning environments?
• What kind of frameworks and classroom practices can help teachers nurture students’ relational capacity more intentionally?

 

Reflecting on human connection

• Professor Ju-Ho Lee questioned how AI can help us strengthen what makes us most human — our connections with one another.
• He also shared five ideas that reframe the way we measure, coach, and teach human connections.
• Building on relational intelligence's three-level architecture, Bruce Au proposed a working group to measure how we connect meaningfully.

 

Further reading on future relational economies

Recommended by Isabelle Hau

 

• David Deming (Harvard), Forked Lightning: Efficient Social Learning Is the Engine of Civilization
• The Context Window with David Deming Podcast: Why social skills will be increasingly valuable in the age of AI
• Alex Imas (University of Chicago), Ghosts of Electricity 
• Erik Brynjolfsson (Stanford)'s work on: 
  • AI complementarity and augmentation 
  • Human agency scale
  • Kirk Doran's research on relational economies