Fragmented communities, neuro-digital integration, and citizen-led innovation

This week we are continuing our experiment in exploring the future through three signals, one that worries us, one that indicates progress in some arena, and one that gives us hope. This week we look at emerging resistance to the American Library Association, breakthroughs in brain-computer interactions, and new opportunities for citizens to participate in research and problem-solving.

What’s Worrying

What Happened

The American Library Association (ALA) is the oldest and largest library association in the world. For 150 years it is has provided support and training to librarians in all fifty states, Washington D.C, and Guam. Recently, however, states like Montana, Missouri, and Texas have severed ties with the ALA. Conservative legislators in at least nine additional states are advocating for similar actions. They believe the ALA promotes inappropriate content and have concerns over the political views of its leaders.

So What

The move of states to sever ties with the American Library Association underscores a broader shift away from valuing institutional expertise and towards a more subjective interpretation of knowledge and information This skepticism is fueled by – and fuels - political polarization, and could have significant impacts on the flow of information, the accessibility of diverse perspectives, and social trust. If these trends persist, by 2036 we could witness a dramatically different world. Imagine waking up to a personalized news briefing from your home AI, meticulously curated based on your family's unique values and beliefs. Your children's education and entertainment are also tailored in the same way, creating an information ecosystem that is as unique as your family itself.

In this potential future, neighborhoods fracture into disparate “micro-realities” and neighbors inhabiting different echo chambers barely interact. Prejudice between groups festers unchecked by exposure to shared spaces, diverse peers, or countering views.  

Without shared facts and experiences binding them, communities might evolve beyond traditional geographical boundaries, forming around shared interests or beliefs instead. These 'digital communities' could have their own currencies, governance structures, and even educational systems, all managed on decentralized digital platforms. While this could allow for greater personalization and representation, it could also lead to a lack of shared physical community spaces and a sense of alienation for those not adept with technology. It’s a world like this that Malka Older explored in Infomacracy, a world in which navigating diverse realities will be an essential skill.

Food for thought

In this potential future, the challenge for educators will be to equip students not just with knowledge, but with the tools to navigate and bridge vastly different realities. They will need to foster empathy, critical thinking, and digital citizenship to ensure students can thrive in a hyper-fragmented world. A few questions to consider now

• What strategies can we employ to foster critical thinking and empathy in a world where information is highly personalized and subjective?\

• How might we adapt our teaching methods to equip students with the skills to navigate and create in a world of 'micro-realities'?

• As communities potentially become more digital, how can we prepare students to participate in and contribute to these new forms of community?

• What technologies will enable new forms of information sharing, digital participation, collaboration?

• How might we incorporate lessons about decentralized digital platforms, and the implications for privacy, trust, and digital citizenship, into the curriculum?

• How might these trends impact our school or district's relationship with the wider community? What roles can schools play in building relationships and alignment between hyper-fragmented micro-communities?

What’s Working

What happened

Researchers are making significant advancements in the fields of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and 'mind-reading' AI. For instance, a team from the University of California San Diego has developed earbud sensors that can monitor brain activity.  This breakthrough could aid in diagnosing neurodegenerative conditions, as well as tracking exercise performance, stress, and focus. Elsewhere, researchers in San Francisco have used avatar. Additionally, teams in Texas and Singapore are achieving success in translating brain signals into speech and visualized images.

So What

The development and normalization of brain-computer interfaces and 'mind-reading' AI could reshape many aspects of life by 2036. In healthcare, we may see a revolution in diagnosing and treating neurodegenerative and mental health conditions, with individuals having the tools to monitor their cognitive health in real-time.

In workplaces and social spaces, these technologies could redefine norms around productivity and social interaction. The ability to 'tune in' or 'tune out' at will could transform work cultures and friendship dynamics, possibly leading to new expectations around focus and engagement.

More broadly, the commodification of brain data in a potential "neuro-economy" could have profound impacts on our sense of individuality and personal identity. If our thoughts, feelings, and cognitive patterns can be quantified and traded, it changes what it means to 'be yourself'. As brain data becomes more valuable, the risk of "neuro-hacking" may also increase, leading to new security threats and privacy concerns.

While some may view these advancements as a means to lead healthier and more productive lives, others may fear the potential curtailing of free expression, creativity, and individuality. The ethical, legal, and policy implications of these changes could be profound, requiring thoughtful regulation to protect individual rights and societal well-being.

Food for thought

• How might we help students and parents understand the implications of technologies like brain-computer interfaces and 'mind-reading' AI on society, economy, and individual identity?

• What policies and safeguards would we put in place to protect the neuro-privacy and cognitive rights of our students in the face of these emerging technologies?

• Considering the potential for these technologies to provide insights into when and how individual children learn, what skills and knowledge will educators need to use these tools to personalize and improve the learning experience for each student?

• How might we involve the wider community in discussions and decisions about the adoption of these technologies in our schools?

• How can we keep ourselves updated about the latest research and experiments involving brain-computer interfaces in education, and apply those learnings to our own context?

What’s Hopeful

What happened

In Los Angeles, architecture students at Woodbury University have collaborated with city officials to construct an eco-friendly, 3D printed house, demonstrating how city-university partnerships can leverage innovation to address housing and climate crises. Meanwhile, at a high school in Arkansas, students have successfully bred the critically endangered Louisiana Pine snake in class, highlighting the potential of educational initiatives in supporting conservation efforts. Further, through the Zooniverse platform, over 10,000 amateur astronomers have participated in the Dark Energy Explorers project, helping to identify over 240,000 galaxies.

So What

These signals align with broader trends towards more inclusive, participatory, and transdisciplinary approaches in problem-solving and research, breaking down traditional barriers and promoting the cross-pollination of ideas. Technological advancements like 3D printing are becoming more accessible and are being deployed to address complex societal issues, such as housing and climate crises. This is not a mere application of technology; it's a fusion of diverse fields including architecture, engineering, environmental science, and urban planning, leading to solutions that are technically sound and socially and environmentally conscious. Similarly, the digital revolution is enabling citizen-led scientific research.

If these trends continue, by 2036 our cities would be designed from the ground up to nurture human flourishing. Gone are the days of top-down planning by distant bureaucrats. Instead, citizens actively participate in an integrated process of urban creation.

On digital citizenship platforms residents propose and vote on policies and designs for local public spaces. Augmented environments empower people to visualize future infrastructure in granular detail, experiencing spaces before construction starts. Citizens join collaborative simulations where they walk future streets, enter planned structures, and provide real-time input. Nothing is set in stone until extensive community feedback is gathered.

Other platforms allow anyone to contribute to new discoveries in astrophysics, chemistry, and almost any other field of study. Public science contributors debate over lexicon and phenomenology in new knowledge networks, shattering old power dynamics. And new crossover fields emerge as expertise and passion intersect. Botanist-musicians hybridize plant genomes into new sensory experiences. Physicist-dancers reveal the beauty of entropy through choreographed randomness.

In this world, creation and discovery have become social. Radical accessibility, openness and collaboration allow every citizen to shape collective knowledge. Reality is no longer parsed into discrete domains, but is understood as an interdependent system.

Food for thought

• How might we foster a culture of curiosity and discovery in our classrooms that encourages students to engage with citizen-led research and innovation?

• How might we integrate transdisciplinary learning in our curriculum, encouraging students to make connections across various fields of knowledge and understand issues from multiple perspectives?

• How might we foster partnerships with local organizations, universities, or city officials to allow our students to contribute to real-world problem solving?

• How can we adapt our assessment and evaluation systems to recognize and reward not just academic achievement, but also community impact and civic engagement?

• How can we prepare our students to navigate and contribute to platforms like Zooniverse, fostering their skills not just as consumers of information, but as contributors to collective knowledge?

• How can we ensure that our educational environment empowers students to see themselves as capable of making meaningful contributions to scientific research and community problem-solving?

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Generative AI Disclosure and Reflections

For this issue we continued working with our bot MySignalAnalyzer to explore how each signal reflects current trends, identify possible countertrends, and explore the possible implications of for the world in 2036. This dialogue sharpened our thinking and expanded the possible future for us, especially when we asked the bot to explore non-obvious implications and to be deliberately provocative. We then asked Claude AI - also accessed through Poe - to act as an editor and provide feedback so that we could revise. Finally, we worked with Poe’s Midjourney bot to generate prompts that would help us create images.

Our ongoing experiment with generative AI has helped us better understand its limitations and potential. For us, it provides a way to escape the tyranny of the blank page; getting started, even with a few bad thoughts, unlocks our thinking. We have also found it to be an excellent summarizer, although often its summaries reveal to us through their absence the ideas and details we think are most important. We also find that it can easily lead us to constrain our thinking about future possibilities, as in many ways its training regimen makes it a backward-looking intelligence. However, with the right prompting, it can explore more speculative possibilities. Our challenge is to be aware of its biases – and our own – and to push on them. We fall short often, but will keep trying. For more on the capabilities and traps of generative AI in education and in futures thinking, please look into the excellent work of Ethan Mollick, Maree Conway and Charles Tsai.