World Futures Day, AI Hot Takes, and the Future People Actually Want
December 2nd is UNESCO World Futures Day, which focuses on "futures literacy" and the idea that everyone should have agency and empowerment. Basically, that means we should be listening to opinions from all walks of life, especially when thinking about what is coming up next for society. Like most of our tech friends, our minds jump to AI because it is already shifting our creativity, culture, work, identity, trust, and the way we experience reality. UNESCO is concerned about the danger of systems that evolve faster than people can respond.
Throughout October and November, Ambistream has been hosting "AI Salons" in Lisbon and NYC, where I filmed people's hopes, concerns, and predictions for the future. Most of the time, our AI Hot Takes participants had no idea that they were about to be asked to express their viewpoints. I would surprise a lot of the guests by whipping out my camera and wired microphone and ask them to give me their unique perspective. Most of the time they had a thought on the tip of their tongue because they've been saturated with news and attended events where AI was discussed constantly. But it was usually someone on a stage or with a PR team trying to spin it a certain way.
This guerrilla style invited more diverse opinions, which fell into a few categories:
Future Predictions
People jumped immediately into visions of what the future could look like. The ideas ranged from practical to absurd to strangely poeticL
“AI will outsmart people in 10 years. So we all have to move to another planet. I think I’m going to choose Saturn.”
“AI is going to build better cities than humans.”
“The real future is voice, talking to your devices like they’re people.”
“AI will crack physics. That’s when we get the flying cars.”
“I think the future of pizza is AI!”
“I want a digital twin to drive my car when I’m drunk and to handle the birthday messages so nobody gets offended.”
“I believe Instagram has consciousness.”
Lifestyle, Identity, and Creativity
A lot of people talked about how AI will shape the way we live and express ourselves:
“AI helped me understand neurotypicals — it changes how I see the world.”
“If you can verbalize what goes unnamed, you unlock more creative output… we’re going to have billions of new identities, genres, cultures.”
“Not every person using AI needs to use AI. Some labor should stay human.”
Many Europeans talked about wanting more downtime, more softness, more vacation, and fewer errands. They wanted AI to support a lifestyle of leisure instead of stress.
System-Level and Societal Concerns
People also focused on the infrastructure around all of this, including the systems, pressures, distortions, and risks:
“Algorithm-driven information… that’s my concern.”
“I believe the internet is going to collapse and we won’t recognize what’s real.”
“AI will destroy a lot of relationships between friends, girlfriends, boyfriends… emotions get in the way.”
“Humans are selfish beings and what they think doesn’t really matter. We put ourselves on a pedestal but we’re not part of the equation.”
And sometimes they added constructive suggestions:
“AI today is individualistic. We need tech that builds human connection.”
“We need to embed values and morals into AI because real people get hurt.”
UNESCO World Futures Day focuses on how we can navigate volatility through foresight and anticipation. These hot takes, salons and panels gave us a space to listen, and what we heard reinforced the direction we're already heading.
Ambistream is built around these ideas. We are creating dashboards where people can control whether they want predominantly AI-generated content, human-made content, or a hybrid mix. Creators will be able to decide if they want AI to reinterpret or remix their work into new formats, with transparent attribution and provenance tracking built in.
We believe that media should adapt to how people want to experience their world: productive, relaxed, social, energetic, entertained, or curious. Our system is designed to help users shape their digital environments in ways that are authentic and respectful. This includes allowing them to set boundaries around AI usage, choose content sources they trust, and curate experiences that align with their values.
You might notice that in all of these comments people are not asking us to go backward or to have less technology. All they want is access to technology that serves them, where they have more control over what they see, clarity about what's real, and environments that support how they want to live. That's the future we're all working to build.