Task 12: Speculative Futures

Task: Considering what you have learned in this course, create two speculative narratives (one utopian, one dystopian) about our potential relationship with media, education, text and technology in the next 30 years. These narratives may be created in any media available (linguistic text, images, animations, audio, video, multi-modal, etc,). If pertinent, try to integrate a bio of your fictitious character(s) into the narratives. If you wish, the narratives may be connected—though this is not required.

Dystopia Link: https://view.genial.ly/62f047d4d281c4001125437f/presentation-future-presentation

Utopia Link: https://view.genial.ly/62f08ce4f1a9080012d31a2c/learning-experience-didactic-unit-secondary-didactic-sequence

The Brainstorm for these two contrasting worlds:

AI Enabled Social Support Systems

Mass Surveillance and Social Credit System

Unprecedented drop in mental health problems as the implementation of Universal Basic Income frees up more and more people to pursue community, health and mental-health related jobs, everything from early childhood educator to social worker to nurse and psychologist are much more valued since empathy cannot be ai-replicated. Stress epidemic recognized, move towards less working hours as AI take up more tasks (both at work and at home) Algorithms in your phone help identify health problems early, such as cancer, alzheimer's etc AI is used to help companies and homeowners reduce their emissions, save water, and “re-wild” their properties Global population gradually declines to a more sustainable leve as AI enabled family planning becomes more accessible to all Schools are deeply linked to place, technology has taken much of the “grunt work” out of teaching, allowing teachers to act more as mentors as they guide students social and emotional learning as well as their academics Ai in schools offers students an extremely personalized learning experience, supported by teachers

Government controlled social media leads to unprecedented nationalism, fascism and global conflict Increase in public fear as governments mine social data and use it against citizens Social credit starts in school, which is heavily data-driven. Teachers have been removed in all schools except expensive private ones Students do not receive social ratings until after graduating, but practice a small-scale version in their own schools Global population is in free fall as the earth warms and crops fail, millions experiencing water and food shortages or dying of starvation “ the Panopticon broken free of [its] physical architecture” (“Smartphones and Social Media,” 2021) Algorithms monitor the population for any forms of social or political dissidence, leading to the creeping return of racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. it is one thing to figure out what good citizenship is and another thing to establish what citizens should be required to do, believe, or express following such conception. (Orgad & Reijers, 2019) First, Social Credit Systems are tools for disciplining society. By design, they allow a centralized authority to observe and evaluate individual behaviour. Their power is in channeling human actions towards the expected award and in avoidance of the possible Sanction. Awareness of surveillance is central to Social Credit Systems, as it can curtail free will and individual liberty. (Orgad & Reijers, 2019)

References

Harari, Y. N. (2017). Reboot for the AI revolution. Nature, 550(7676), 324–327. https://doi.org/10.1038/550324a

Orgad, L., & Reijers, W. (2019). A Dystopian Future? The Rise of Social Credit Systems. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://www.academia.edu/42178254/A_Dystopian_Future_The_Rise_of_Social_Credit_Systems_Edited_by_Liav_Orgad_and_Wessel_Reijers

Smartphones and Social Media: A Mass Surveillance Dystopia. (2021, October 30). Academy of Ideas. https://academyofideas.com/2021/10/smartphones-and-social-media-a-mass-surveillance-dystopia/