Week 17 2024

I responded to a colleague’s post about worldbuilding this week in our department Slack. It was worth sharing here in my reflection for the week.

“If you want to view paradise
Simply look around and view it
Anything you want to, do it
Want to change the world?
There’s nothing to it.”

Willy Wonka

Let’s expand this.

I introduced causal layered analysis, disruptive hypotheses, futures studies, and developing alternate realities in my AI course. I’m asking learners to create futures (worlds) that are impossible (preposterous), possible, probable, and preferred to visualize ideal outcomes (better vacation planning, deeper parenting relationships, reduced substance abuse, ending environmental decline). We’re using AI to help us dream this stuff up as a training wheel to stretch students’ imaginations for what’s possible.

I can see how world-building skills—making them real and telling possible stories within them—have expansive implications for creating interventions that make those worlds more likely.

Not that everything has to impact areas like healthcare or climate change, but storytelling has the power to inspire and enact change (and create delight and memories, yes!)