Zombies, Wizards and Superheroes

Tim Lovatt, Head of Digital Learning, UWC South East Asia

Tim Lovatt, Head of Digital Learning, UWC South East Asia

I feel like I live in three strange parallel worlds. Like the multiple timelines in TV shows like Community, it feels like there was some fundamental split, and now we are all pottering along in our own timeline, occasionally catching horrifying or mesmerizing glimpses of the other side of the veil.

Where do you stand? Which of these fits best with your forecast for the world?

Metaphor 1 - The Zombie Apocalypse

I love a zombie movie, I love a zombie game and a zombie metaphor, apparently. In most zombie movies, we are all completely toast. There are a few hardcore preppers who saw the end coming, hoarded guns and lived off the grid; they sometimes end up okay, along with the person who was in a coma for the outbreak and wakes up to a changed world. These storylines often start with a seemingly innocent chain of events, usually led by or at least precipitated by scientists trying to push the frontiers of technology. Maybe they’ve been experimenting with rage- inducing viruses, maybe researchers are trying to re-engineer the measles virus into a cure for cancer, or maybe some rogue fast-food joint cuts a few corners on their hamburger production.

Is this where we’re heading? AI 2027, written by acclaimed forecasters and tech gurus, counts the number of years we have left as a species on one hand. Mustafa Suleyman tells us all the things that could possibly go wrong, from life-ending synthetic biological lab leaks to the collapse of the nation-state and hackers with superpowers shooting nukes at each other. We occasionally get a glimpse of this impending apocalypse, like when the WannaCry ransomware attacks shut down the entire National Health Service in the UK, when the Pasteur Institute “lost” 2000 vials of the SARS virus, or when the CrowdStrike update grounded thousands of planes. None of these examples even used AI, which could feasibly amplify both the impact and the frequency of such events significantly.

Metaphor 2 - The Wizard of Oz

The infamous titular wizard is heralded all around the Kingdom as a magical wonder, capable of completing any task with inhuman skill and speed, and all you need to do is simply ‘wish it’. What may also sound familiar is that when you pull back the curtain, it is all a cleverly marketed illusion designed to prop up structures of power.

“Still, protagonists share common traits: resilience, adaptability, resourcefulness, determination and, most of all, relationships with others”

The key tenets of Oz seem to be emerging. Last year, MIT researcher Daron Acemoglu predicted a 0.5 percent increase in productivity over the next 10 years due to AI, with only around 5 percent of tasks profitably automated across the same time period (tasks, not jobs). The US National Bureau of Economic Statistics recently published a report which, from my perspective, agrees with this meager impact, suggesting that the average worker saves around 30 minutes per week by automating. The Boston Consulting Group just found that only 4 percent of companies are creating meaningful value with AI, and a recent McKinsey report heralded enormous uptake and self-reported efficiency gains, but also quietly mentioned that 83 percent of companies “aren’t seeing a tangible impact” on earnings. Maybe AI is all hype and we’re all just mesmerized by the promise of it making our wishes come true?

The thing with the wizard, though, even though he was a conman and a fraud, people still actually ended up getting what they wished for, in a roundabout way. Maybe we will too. Maybe the stats are like this because it’s a slow burner? The internet, arguably the last general purpose technological breakthrough, was actually invented in the 60s, evolved into the public domain in the late 80s, and companies only achieved large-scale commercial success with it in the 2000s. Maybe at some point in 2047, we’ll realize we are actually over the rainbow.

But somewhere between the cataclysmic and the slow burn is the realm of the superhero.

Metaphor 3 - The Superhero Universe

You know the drill. A distinctly average human discovers a new ability. Sometimes they pay for the privileges, sometimes they earn them and sometimes they are gifted them by the powers that be. Either way, they are suddenly capable of things that they weren’t capable of before and this opens up a whole new world for them. Unfortunately, that world is often fraught with new and unprecedented challenges, dangers and the possibility of losing themselves in the ensuing chaos. Along the way, they encounter other people who have been augmented in similar, but different, ways.

Not a week goes by without a new tool which will instantly plan lessons, mark papers, give feedback, create engaging hooks and pretend to be Marie Curie or differentiate a worksheet by translating it into 172 languages and responsively leveling it for every student. Some of these are, or at least could be, legitimately useful superpowers for teachers and students. In the mix somewhere is the radioactive spider bite that will actually, meaningfully change education and hence billions of lives. The WEF reports that the majority of teachers are using AI, and many sources claim that this will result in a reduced teacher workload. But a superhero never emerges without a supervillain; in this case, the evil Dr. Cognitive Outsourcing, the nefarious Professor Deepfake and their weird army of minions are characters in the first season, with likely many more seasons to come.

Usually, superheroes triumph. It’s not easy and it’s not a straight road, but they make a better world for everyone.

What I find fascinating is that I see all three of these scenarios being played out in the media simultaneously. Maybe that’s because they can all happen simultaneously. Maybe superheroes will save us from the science-gone-wrong apocalypse, but slowly and over decades. Or maybe it’s just simply because nobody has the faintest idea what is going to happen. I certainly don’t.

Regardless, the characteristics that all our protagonists have above? Resilience, adaptability, resourcefulness, determination and above all, relationships with others. So whether we’re facing a zombie apocalypse, a supervillain rampage, or a mysterious propaganda driven dictator, we can all be the hero and our students can too.