Human in the Loop at Manotsava 2025

Human in the Loop was at the second edition of Manotsava - India's National Mental Health Festival, held on November 8-9, 2025, at the Lalit Ashok in Bengaluru.

We were selected as a community partner to host an interactive booth, allowing attendees to engage with one of the comic's from the series, Soundmind, sparking conversations on how Generative AI might shape our inner lives, relationships, and resilience.

Through our interactive booth, visitors engaged with the story, exploring exploring AI-powered assistive and companion technologies, and the larger anthology examining AI’s near-future risks and unintended consequences across healthcare, justice, agriculture, and everyday life.

Over two days, we spoke with 400+ attendees, from technologists and students to psychologists and social impact professionals, and heard one thing loud and clear: stories make complex research accessible.

Read a sampling of some of the feedback below:

“Well researched comic strips, relatable and realistic — thought-provoking!”

“Very creative. Love how it is interdisciplinary and at the intersection of multiple sectors.”

“Stories with research backing add much more to the credibility.”

“Very innovative and illustrative approach to research.”

“Great way to make research more visual and accessible, it’ll change the world of research!”

“We don't have an imagination yet of how AI will impact us. This is helpful!”

“Amazing! Thought-provoking and feels less like science fiction and more realistic. Well-researched!”

“This is good stuff, very important! We need to advocate for more work like this!”

The response reaffirmed the very goal of this project and our work: we need more tools to imagine our futures and with the pace of GenAI's evolution, it is urgent to adapt methods like participatory foresight and storytelling (that we used with Human in the Loop) to bridge imagination and policy, helping us build more human-centred digital futures.