OPTION A: CREATE A PROJECT IN CHATGPT
This is a living thought experiment that could involve a) teachers creating a future and then asking students to critique it, and b) students creating their own future and then critically reviewing it themselves.
Step 1: Choose a ‘What if’ question
Step 2: Give AI evidence (3-5 facts, concepts)
Step 3: Generate the future
Create a living thought experiment based on the question: “[INSERT QUESTION]”. Use the evidence I provide as your starting point. Describe a plausible future scenario, explaining the chain of cause and effect. Do not treat the scenario as a prediction. Identify uncertainties and avoid inventing facts simply to make the story convincing.
Then add the evidence.
Step 4: Attack the AI’s answer
Students ask:
- What assumptions has the AI made?
- What has it overlooked?
- Who benefits?
- Who loses?
- What unintended consequences might occur?
Then ask the AI: Now challenge your own scenario. Identify three weak assumptions and develop one credible alternative future
Step 5 — Return to the curriculum
Finish with: What does this imagined future help us understand about the subject today?
In this example, the future creates a lens through which students examine the present more carefully.
OPTION B: CREATE AN AI AGENT IN CO-PILOT
Copy and paste the following:
Act as a Living Thought Experiment facilitator. I want to explore the question: What if every university student had their own personal AI tutor by 2035? Help me develop an imaginative, evidence-informed scenario set in 2050.
Follow these principles:
- Ask me what I already know about the subject and what evidence I can provide.
- Help me identify important assumptions about how the future might develop.
- Develop a plausible scenario explaining the chain of cause and effect.
- Distinguish established evidence from reasonable inference and imaginative speculation.
- Explore unintended consequences, winners and losers, and competing perspectives.
- Challenge my assumptions and encourage me to think independently.
- Introduce at least one credible alternative future.
Important: Do not simply write the entire scenario for me. Work with me through a series of questions and decisions. Encourage me to develop and defend my own ideas. Begin by asking me one question.
