Music, motion design and wordart by Cristina. Photos and footages by Cristina except when mentioned.
meTAMErism
27th Nov 2025
fantasy
17th Nov 2025
Sound ON for “fantasy”—music, photography and design by myself.
50
13rd Nov 2025
Sound ON for “50”—music, photography and design by myself. 50 because it's the 50th tune I made excluding the jingle for the podcast, which was the first musical experiment I made in December 2022. Only in September 2023 I decided to keep doing more experiments and it sums up 50 today. I still have one tune left from last year to share and only because it was thought to be used differently.
dangerously
23rd Oct 2025
Sound ON for “dangerously”—music, photography and design by myself.
sTIckERS
16th Sep 2025
ser caPAZ
6th Sep 2025
aquatic
5th Sep 2025
Sound ON for “aquatic”—music, photography and design by myself.
paper
3rd Sep 2025
Sound ON for “paper”—music, photography and design by myself.
pURGE
1st Sep 2025
leito
22nd Aug 2025
Sound ON for “leito”—music, photography and design by myself.
iNtEracTions
16th Jul 2025
thROUGH dROUGHt
15th Jul 2025
faint light
19th Jun 2025
Sound ON for “faint light”—music, photography and design by myself.
differently
11th Jun 2025
Sound ON for “differently”—music, photography and design by myself.
World Oceans Day
8th Jun 2025
Sound ON! Re sharing my tune “Wonder” for World Oceans Day—”Wonder: Sustaining what sustains us” is the theme for World Oceans Day 2025. Music, photography and design by myself.
Feliz dia da Criança!
1st Jun 2025
Sound ON for “affection”—music, photography and design by myself. I made this tune last year to celebrate Children’s Day that happens to be on the 1st of June here in Portugal. Added a bass this time.
nowhere
31st May 2025
Sound ON for “nowhere”—music, photography and design by myself.
poemas quotidianos
29th May 2025
Sound ON for “poemas quotidianos”—music, photography and design by myself.
basalt
27th May 2025
Sound ON for “basalt”—music, photography and design by myself.
playground
22nd May 2025
Sound ON for “playground”—music, photography and design by myself.
inventário
20th May 2025
Sound ON for “inventário”—music, photography and design by myself.
moments
15th May 2025
Sound ON for “moments”—music, photography and design by myself.
Blackouts
29th Apr 2025
a mágoa dos dias
7th Apr 2025
Sound ON for “a mágoa dos dias” [PT]—music, photography and design by myself.
motion
12th Mar 2025
Sound ON for “motion”—music, photography and design by myself.
CARryING
9th Mar 2025
International Women’s Day
8th Mar 2025
Sound ON! Happy International Women’s Day! Here’s a variation of the animation I made last year from my WomEn’s wordart—same, but different.
Wordart, music and (motion) design by myself. Photos: Adobe.
Wordart, music and (motion) design by myself. Photos: Adobe.
DrEAD
6th Mar 2025
pasSatEMpo
2nd Mar 2025
CLOsurE
20th Feb 2025
The Board and Paper Talks
15th Feb 2025
The first episode of The Board and Paper Talks came to life 2 years ago today. It was quite a thrill to see the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other end points—100 % self made at my home office in a small city in Portugal. The podcast was created as a new constellation where the guests are the stars, and I’m proud to have a trans nonbinary person and a transgender woman among them. The subject matter of the podcast is the future of what is generally called paper, something that has been questioned since early 20th century and under increased pressure, as exponential technologies develop, become ubiquitous and reshape entire sectors. The present disruption brought by this exponential technological advancement is unprecedented and aimed to be explored on the podcast, while having a glimpse on how end-users are using paper. The goal was to talk about art, design, paper, board, fast fashion, circular economy, AI and everything in between, including hopes and fears in what concerns our collective future. A collective future that the podcast hoped to contribute for, while being 100% self funded—a purposeful effort. Thank you so much for all guests that participated on the podcast and made 18 episodes become a reality.
I would like to highlight a very inspiring project, Future Library by Katie Paterson, who isn’t among the guests. “One thousand trees have been planted in Nordmarka, a forest just outside Oslo, which will supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in one hundred years’ time. Between now and then, one writer every year will contribute a text, with the writings held in trust, unpublished, until the year 2114. Tending the forest and ensuring its preservation for the one hundred year duration of the artwork finds a conceptual counterpoint in the invitation extended to each writer: to conceive and produce a work in the hope of finding a receptive reader in an unknown future.(…) The manuscripts are being held in trust in a specially designed room in the new public library Deichman Bjørvika. Intended to be a space of contemplation, this room is lined with wood from the forest. The authors’ names will be on display, but none of the manuscripts will be available for reading – until their publication in one century’s time.” Taking in consideration the current trajectory, from climate change to technological development, some questions arise—will the forest still exist by 2114? Will paper still be produced by then? And will humans (still Sapiens?) still read books? Or, put in a different way, will we make it? Will Sapiens make it?
Long live paper, long live print!
Thank you!
25th Jan 2025
I’m deciding, completely on my own, to not move forward with my podcast The Board and Paper Talks. This podcast aims to discuss the future of what is generally called paper (including board) and printed material, and also to have a glimpse on how end-users are using paper. It was conceived as a new constellation to talk about art, design, paper, board, fast fashion, circular economy, AI and everything in between, including hopes and fears in what concerns our collective future. I would like to emphasize that the podcast is 100% self-funded and 100% self-made. I want to thank all guests, followers and those who listened to it. Wishing everyone a bright future.
BITter
23rd Jan 2025
stubBORN
23rd Jan 2025
bLACK
23rd Jan 2025
cReATE
23rd Jan 2025
com a(l)ma
23rd Jan 2025
elevaDOR social
16th Jan 2025
IMAGinE
8th Jan 2025
happy holidays
12th Dec 2024
Sound ON and “happy holidays”!—music, photography and design by myself. I developed last year’s short tune I made for my happy holidays animation into an extended one.
walk
11th Dec 2024
Sound ON for “walk”—music, photography and design by myself.
encantamento
10th Dec 2024
Sound ON for “encantamento”—music, photography and design by myself.
PeACE
6th Dec 2024
glacial
5th Dec 2024
Sound ON for “glacial”—music, photography and design by myself.
reSpEcT
5th Dec 2024
orDinArY
4th Dec 2024
underground
3rd Dec 2024
This March I shared a video I made on Maria Keil´s tiles that included a short tune called “underground”. This short tune was born November last year, and I hesitated on using it to make the video I ended up doing, or making a longer tune. I decided to make the longer tune now, the photo is one of the many I took to make Maria Keil’s video, from Picoas underground station, one of my favorite works of her.
NuclEAR?
28th Nov 2024
Hopefully not. On changing the world: I completely missed the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons which is something I stand for.
aPATHy
26th Nov 2024
International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
25th Nov 2024
On changing the world: no HARMony for the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
sPAIN
4th Nov 2024
never
3rd Nov 2024
I never tried drugs nor will, nor had any other substance addiction in my life.
still
1st Nov 2024
“longing”, a tune I shared with the world December last year.
contemplation
29th Oct 2024
Sound ON for “contemplation”—music, photography and design by myself.
the world
24th Oct 2024
cAGE
24th Oct 2024
don’t MESSage
19th Oct 2024
harbour
19th Oct 2024
Sound ON for “harbour”—music, photography and design by myself.
FEliZ
18th Oct 2024
CAmaDA
10th Oct 2024
StAY
5th Oct 2024
International Music Day
1st Oct 2024
Sharing my first stand alone tune “dreams” for today’s International Music Day.
MOveMENT / MOviMENTO
26th Sep 2024
Wordart update
8th Jul 2024
A collection of wordart that stood behind: DecAY, pRESEnt, CUltuRE, SCARed, impACT, DecIdE, aWAReness, iMprOVE, FREquEncy.
Will we make it?
22nd Jun 2024
This is a still from Pulp’s epic concert (the energy!) at Primavera Sound Porto 2024. I hope that live concerts never become a memory from the past—it will mean, at least for me, that somehow we made it. This line of thought isn’t new for me. I watched The National twice before this Primavera, the first time in December 2019 (Lisbon). I thought about it every now and then during the lockdowns as it was the last live concert (epic too) I watched before the pandemic. I watched them again at exactly the same place last October, and it was somehow reassuring, despite having been at live concerts in the meanwhile. Lana Del Rey gathered ~40,000 people at the festival—“heaven is a place on earth with you”, an unforgettable concert with everyone singing the songs enthusiastically (now available on YouTube). I love the magic at live concerts, the more or less galvanising interaction between the artist and the audience, depending on the kind of music—Jarvis Cocker (an absolute legend) and Pulp definitely know what do for an encore, it was unforgettable too. Let’s keep supporting our favourite artists and have all the fun while it lasts. Hopefully forever.
Primavera Sound Porto 2024
11th Jun 2024
Sound ON! My love for music and how it shapes my life is well known. Sharing my raw footages (iPhone) of Primavera Sound Porto 2024, my second time there, had been twice in Barcelona. I used my tune “grit” for this video and my font Audio & Type. Music, footages, font and motion design by myself.
SOLidão
13th May 2024
bRaSil
11th May 2024
Muita coragem e força para a reconstrução das áreas afectadas pelas cheias no Rio Grande do Sul.
DIREction
3rd Apr 2024
DIREction: OpenAI disclosed Voice Engine “a model which uses text input and a single 15-second audio sample to generate natural-sounding speech that closely resembles the original speaker.” While I think it poses big risks to any individual, it will be challenging for those who govern, and democracy will be impacted (at stake?). I don’t understand how voice isn’t considered on EU Artifical Intellingence Act’s “Article 5: Prohibited Artificial Intelligence Practices”. We are living unprecedented times, and at this point agency seems to be inversely proportional to technological development, power just keeps concentrating. Acting upon reality is challenging. “In 2040, competition, both among states such as the United States and China and among big tech companies, will have led to corners being cut in the development of safe AI.” from “Interlinked Computing in 2040: Safety, Truth, Ownership, and Accountability”, IEEE Computer Society. It seems that we are left with 16 years until the world becomes inhabitable. I’m inclined to not keep writing about these subjects, it isn’t welcome, and I already covered what is critical—I’ve been identifying and anticipating risks, in order to raise awareness so that it’s possible to find new solutions to avoid collapse and avert synchronous failure. Human-centered solutions, not further dystopias.
PErsoNal
2nd Apr 2024
PErsoNal: some additional thoughts on paper, beyond the noise. What is paper’s true value? Paper is personal, paper entails privacy: your diary, your notebooks, your sketchbooks, your personal notes during a work meeting, physical books, zines, the postcard on Valentine’s Day or any other special occasion, snail mail. Even if you don’t keep a diary, even if you don’t doodle, even if you take notes on your tablet, even if it is known which book you bought, even if you don’t use snail mail anymore, you would find a paperless world profoundly dystopian and agonising.
agENDa
31st Mar 2024
Having problems to login on LinkedIn since yesterday, wonder why.
International Zero Waste Day
30th Mar 2024
sUstaiNable: International Day of Zero Waste.
Higlights from the “World Inequality Report 2022”:
>> The top 1% of the population owns 38% of total wealth, the top 10% owns 76% of total wealth, the middle 40% owns 22% of total wealth, and the bottom 50% owns 2% of total wealth <<
“Economic inequality is widespread, to some extent inevitable, and always at the center of debates about how societies should be organized.”
“Global income and wealth inequalities are tightly connected to ecological inequalities and to inequalities in contributions to climate change.”
“The top 1% of carbon emitters contributed significantly more to global emissions growth than the entire bottom half of the global population.”
“Carbon inequalities between regions are large and persistent—average per capita emissions by world region, 2019 (tonnes of CO2 per person per year): North America 20.8 / Russia & Central Asia 9.9 / Europe 9.7 / East Asia 8.6 / MENA 7.4 / Latin America 4.8 / South & South-East Asia 2.6 / World 6.6
Global carbon inequality, 2019: emissions by group (tonnes of CO2 per person per year): top 1% 110 / top 10% 31 / middle 40% 6.6 / bottom 50% 1.6 / full population 6.6
“Perhaps the most conspicuous illustration of extreme pollution associated with wealth inequality in recent years is the development of space travel. Space travel is expected to cost from several thousand dollars to several dozen million dollars per trip. An 11-minute flight emits no fewer than 75 tonnes of carbon per passenger once indirect emissions are taken into account (and more likely, in the 250-1,000 tonnes range). At the other end of the distribution, about one billion individuals emit less than one tonne per person per year. Over their lifetime, this group of one billion individuals does not emit more than 75 tonnes of carbon per person. It therefore takes a few minutes in space travel to emit at least as much carbon as an individual from the bottom billion will emit in her entire lifetime. This example shows that there is scarcely any limit to the carbon emissions of the ultra-wealthy.”
The “Circularity Gap Report 2024” states that “Ultimately, different countries will have different priorities in scaling a global circular economy and ensuring that materials funnel into systems and practices that boost wellbeing within the safe limits of the planet.” and also that “People-centric solutions are vital, both because systems change must meet people’s needs and because people and their skills are necessary to implement the solutions themselves. Citizens, workers and consumers must all be considered in the design of circular solutions, to ensure no person, community or nation is left behind.”—I truly hope so.
Future of work
27th Mar 2024
pAperless offIce: welcome to the brave new world. The “Microsoft New Future of Work Report 2023” (link: https://aka.ms/nfw2023) “centers on research related to integrating LLMs into work”. It’s an easy to read PowerPoint report style. “LLMs may help address one of the greatest problems facing organizations knowledge fragmentation” seems to be an argument for their integration into work, “Instant AI feedback may improve real-time interactions in meetings” and “Digital knowledge is moving from documents to dialogues” seems to cue the paperless office. “However, extracting knowledge from communications raises implications for how organization members are made aware of what is being accessed, how it is being surfaced, and to whom. Additionally, people will need support in understanding how insights that are not explicitly shared with others could be inferred by ML systems (Lindley & Wilkins, 2023).”—what will be privacy and others workers’ rights at work?
“Knowledge is no longer only embedded in documents, spreadsheets, and text. It is now embedded in conversation and can be served up dynamically through that same medium. Digital content historically has existed in the form of documents, but is increasingly captured in the form of conversations, be it via digitally mediated conversations between people or between people and an LLM. The knowledge embedded in these conversations can be leveraged by LLMs: facts from previous conversations may be directly surfaced at contextually appropriate times, past conversations can also be used for personalization, successful conversations can provide patterns for prompt engineering. With LLMs mining transcriptions of conversations, conversations become shared and searchable knowledge.”
“Organizational knowledge is fragmented across documents, conversations, apps and devices, but LLMs hold the potential to gather and synthesize this information in ways that were previously impossible. Knowledge fragmentation is a key issue for organizations. Organizational knowledge is distributed across files, notes, emails (Whittaker & Sidner, 1992), chat messages, and more. Actions taken to generate, verify, and deliver knowledge often take place outside of knowledge ‘deliverables’, such as reports, occurring instead in team spaces and inboxes (Lindley & Wilkins, 2023). LLMs can draw on knowledge generated through, and stored within, different tools and formats, as and when the user needs it. Such interactions may tackle key challenges associated with fragmentation, by enabling users to focus on their activity rather than having to navigate tools and file stores, a behavior that can easily introduce distractions (see e.g., Bardram et al. 2019).”
Product-as-a-service
26th Mar 2024
“Another opportunity to extend the useful life of products is through the product-as-a-service model, where companies retain ownership of a product while consumers pay for its use. Advancements in data and tracing technology has enabled better information flow to facilitate this business model.”, “How AI Will Accelerate the Circular Economy”, by Shirley Lu and George Serafeim, Harvard Business Review.
Some preliminary thoughts on “product-as-a-service” without being advocating overconsumption nor operating outside planet boundaries: if ownership is totally converted to service, we will own nothing, everything will be data, we will be totally owned by surveillance.
I would like to take this opportunity to state that I’m not against technological progress—what I am is fully aligned with “Debating responsible AI, The UK expert view” by IPSOS that I’ve been sharing along the way. And I would like to emphasise that these are preliminary thoughts—life will tell if they make sense or not. Having in consideration the level of opposition I keep facing, I might be making the right questions—life will give us the answers.
Some preliminary thoughts on “product-as-a-service” without being advocating overconsumption nor operating outside planet boundaries: if ownership is totally converted to service, we will own nothing, everything will be data, we will be totally owned by surveillance.
I would like to take this opportunity to state that I’m not against technological progress—what I am is fully aligned with “Debating responsible AI, The UK expert view” by IPSOS that I’ve been sharing along the way. And I would like to emphasise that these are preliminary thoughts—life will tell if they make sense or not. Having in consideration the level of opposition I keep facing, I might be making the right questions—life will give us the answers.
World Water Day
22nd Mar 2024
shoRtAGE: “the theme of World Water Day 2024 is ‘Water for Peace’. Water can create peace or spark conflict.” United Nations.
“The most frightening possible prognosis in this respect comes from the renowned security analyst Gwynne Dyer, who envisions a nuclear war between India and Pakistan over access to freshwater from Indian rivers. Currently, this water is vital to Pakistani food production, but along with Bangladesh, India is one of the major countries where the consequences of anthropogenic climate change are expected to be most severe. The country has an enormous coastline, making it extremely vulnerable to cyclones, while at the same time, India’s fertile areas are already suffering from decreasing or delayed meltwater from glaciers in the Himalayas, and a government report expects the country’s water demand to be more than twice the water supply by 2030. Should these developments be allowed to continue unchecked, the water distribution conflict between India and Pakistan may become close to insoluble. Admittedly, this is a worst-case scenario—but it does illustrate the destabilizing potential of anthropogenic climate change.”(…) “In short, anthropogenic climate change is a game changer.” Source: Scenario Issue 61, Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies.
trENDs
19th Feb 2024
Trend is change or develop in a general direction over time. It can be called a megatrend if it occurs at global or large scale. A trend may be strong or weak, increasing, decreasing or stable. There is no guarantee that a trend observed in the past will continue in the future. Megatrends are the big drivers of change, the great forces in societal development that will very likely affect the future in all areas within 10 to 15 years. AI & Automation is one of the megatrends shaping the future of societies, economies, and values.
OpenAI just announced Sora, an AI model that can create realistic and imaginative scenes from text instructions. This text-to-video model can generate videos up to a minute long while maintaining visual quality and adherence to the user’s prompt. With this model we are watching again to the commoditization of another business area, that’s what’s happening with AI. The premise of empowering people to visualize and bring to life their thoughts and imaginations through AI holds a fallacy, as businesses disrupted by AI lose differentiation across its markets, decreasing or making unviable the margins that formerly made the businesses viable, transferring them to those who sell the AI models. It’s very simple: commoditisation via AI is reinforcing polarisation and disrupting businesses in an unprecedented way. Who is going to learn to play an instrument if it’s possible to prompt a song? Who is going to hire a photographer? What will happen with Sora? What will be economically viable? What businesses will survive? One thing is certain: this disruption is irreversible.
I’ve been writing about all this countless times, I recommend everyone to read “Debating Responsible AI: The UK Expert View”.
“I think we should worry about a whole range of things, so I don’t want to suggest no one should be thinking about the loss of control terminator scenario – I think some people should be. But my worry is that we lose sight [of other issues]. When people think about AI policy, are they thinking about the possibility of a million people losing their job in a relatively short timescale and the immense social disruption that will cause.”
“When it comes to AI, most of the time when powerful people talk about Responsible AI what they mean is, “We are doing the responsible thing, don’t worry we’ll take care of it.” I would say that’s an instrumental deployment of the responsibility; it’s antidemocratic definition of responsibility … There’s a sort of exclusive use of the idea of responsibility rather than an inclusive one … the more inclusive way would be to say we don’t actually know all of the issues and all of the questions around AI.”
iNspiratiOn
17th Feb 2024
This week I was confronted with the release of Grabriella’s typeface, “the bold, wide, and emotional typeface from Fer Cozzi” via Type Network on Valentine’s Day. This typeface has letterforms identical to mine Audio & Type that I shared with the world in 2022. It’s available here on my website since then, I use it in my logo. My reaction to it was to comment on Type Network’s Instagram post that “It looks familiar” and repost Type Network’s post here on LinkedIn. I’m incurring in hardship and it is known that I was pondering finishing my typeface by applying to a type design course—Practica Program—which I left to decide during this year. If I had applied and was attending the course (on going), I’d be incurring in a higher level of hardship. I don’t see any need to copy other people’s fonts if you have no inspiration to make your own. Type is everywhere, there is no lack of safe sources from which you can make a unique type design. So it’s up to you, as a type designer or end user to keep supporting Type Network and Fer Cozzi—it’s up to your principles and values. It’s up to you to decide in what world you want to live in, what future you want to create for all of us and future generations.
generAtIve
8th Dec 2023
generAtIve was the first idea for my post on the report “On the Futures of Technology in Education: Emerging Trends and Policy Implications”. I ended up making teAchIng/leArnIng, using the same concept. Today I’m sharing generAtIve for the sake of documenting it here on my blog and close this series.
I’m deeply concerned where we are heading collectively, I dream of a future where the collective thrives, instead of social collapse. I’m inclined to not keep posting about these subjects, there’s plenty of information in the world about mostly everything for decades, and yet here we are. “The Limits to Growth”, for example, was published in 1972. As the roots of generative AI trace back to the 1950s and the 1960s. Climate change, food shortage, water stress and whatever that can compromise our survival, AI—what a moment to be alive. It’s also clear that these posts aren’t welcome nor valued. The same goes to my quest for social innovation—taking in consideration the reactions I had to my posts about my podcast this week, it seems that the existing world is this very cozy place where everyone has their needs met, so there’s no need to push forward in what concerns human rights, equity and welfare.
I hope that it’s possible to avert synchronous failure—it isn’t time for “what ifs”, but more than time to act. Some know that I feel the call to contribute for building the new for a long time already, I’m looking forward for it. The clock is ticking.
I’m deeply concerned where we are heading collectively, I dream of a future where the collective thrives, instead of social collapse. I’m inclined to not keep posting about these subjects, there’s plenty of information in the world about mostly everything for decades, and yet here we are. “The Limits to Growth”, for example, was published in 1972. As the roots of generative AI trace back to the 1950s and the 1960s. Climate change, food shortage, water stress and whatever that can compromise our survival, AI—what a moment to be alive. It’s also clear that these posts aren’t welcome nor valued. The same goes to my quest for social innovation—taking in consideration the reactions I had to my posts about my podcast this week, it seems that the existing world is this very cozy place where everyone has their needs met, so there’s no need to push forward in what concerns human rights, equity and welfare.
I hope that it’s possible to avert synchronous failure—it isn’t time for “what ifs”, but more than time to act. Some know that I feel the call to contribute for building the new for a long time already, I’m looking forward for it. The clock is ticking.
pUrpoSe
27th Oct 2023
My genre isn’t sci-fi but a very real one: pUrpoSe (check last Friday’s post). Enjoying having an independent worldview means exactly this: pUrpoSe. We’re in 2023 and the world is chaotic and extremely polarized. Some days seems that we’re heading to synchronous failure (“Synchronous failure: the emerging causal architecture of global crisis”), others that we’re on the verge of a world war. Information points to the possible collapse of global society before 2040 due to combinations of drought, heat, flooding, fire, and extreme weather leading to failed harvests, thus food shortages that could lead to civil breakdown, migration and conflict (https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/civilization-collapse-climate-change/ and https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7120723904045674496/). So we have ~17 challenging years ahead, plus the disruption that will happen due to exponential technologies too.
Artwork: jigsaw puzzle pUrpoSe by Cristina Lopes, an updated version of previous animation made in May 2020.
Science fiction
27th Oct 2023
This isn’t a post about any futures practice, just playing with futuristic sci-fi genres, do you enjoy any? While I’m future oriented, I’m not a futurist and enjoy preserving my independent worldview. Stay tuned and come back next week, I’ll share my genre with you.
futUres
13th Oct 2023
“Imagine a future and be in it
Feel this incredible nurture, soak it in
Your past is on a loop, turn it off
See this possible future and be in it”
Excerpt from “Future forever”, Björk
MAchiNe
6th Oct 2023
MAchiNe: convergence or dominance?
Polarization
29th Sep 2023
Jonathan’s Taplin article on Vanity Fair from August is a must read, regardless your belief system and worldview.
“This vision of the future is so at odds with my beliefs that, to explain the divide, I need to revert to the Greek philosopher Epicurus and his ideas about what made a good and fulfilling life. Epicurus highlighted three elements:
The company of good friends
The freedom and autonomy to enjoy meaningful work
An “examined life” built around a core faith or philosophy
It could be argued that the transhumanists who are building the Metaverse, generative AI, and life-extension technologies apparently don’t care if you achieve any of these goals. If your friends are other avatars whose real identities are cloaked, you don’t have the company of good friends. If you sit home all day wearing your VR helmet (because your job has been assumed by an AI), subsisting on government universal basic income payments, you have neither freedom nor the autonomy to enjoy meaningful work. If much of what you do is based on a virtual fantasy existence, you certainly don’t have an examined life. You will have become a cyborg at the end of reality.”
Another interesting and complementary reading, for those who missed it, is “Paralysed woman able to ‘speak’ through digital avatar in world first”. “A severely paralysed woman has been able to speak through an avatar using technology that translated her brain signals into speech and facial expressions. The advance raises hopes that brain-computer-interfaces (BCIs) could be on the brink of transforming the lives of people who have lost the ability to speak due to conditions such as strokes and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).” As Yuval Harari questions in his book “Sapiens”, first published in 2014, “If the curtain is indeed about to drop on Sapiens history, we members of one of its final generations should devote some time to answering one last question: what do we want to become?”
I will add some further questions: which business is at this point available to lose its competitive edge by falling behind in what concerns technological developments? Who, from individuals to nations, is willing to fall behind in the race for technological dominance?
So how are we collectively moving forward in a polarized world, amidst such level of disruption and uncertainty?
On the Futures of Technology in Education: Emerging Trends and Policy Implications
22nd Sep 2023
Following the previous post, today I’m sharing “On the Futures of Technology in Education: Emerging Trends and Policy Implications”, released two days ago by Publications Office of the European Union. Download full report: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC134308
Abstract: This report identifies key emerging technologies and discusses their potential impact in education. Drawing on academic research and grey literature, it focuses on a set of ongoing technical developments that could redefine education, and society at large, in fundamental ways. It provides insights into the affordances of those technologies and important societal implications, discussing how they may reconfigure education against the background of learning theory. It also takes into account the socio-material basis of digital technologies, as well as key factors —such as climate change, demographic transitions, environmental concerns and the growth of mental health problems among the young— that are shaping the emerging educational landscape. The report aims to go beyond the state-of-the-art and facilitate richer discussions on the potential impact of emerging technologies in education in order to support long-term strategic thinking. Based on that, it offers recommendations to ensure that future policy actions are aligned with the societal and educational needs.
Tuomi, I., Cachia, R. and Villar Onrubia, D., On the Futures of Technology in Education: Emerging Trends and Policy Implications, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2023, doi:10.2760/079734, JRC134308
“Trivium and quadrivium formed the basis for education in the medieval Europe. The associated seven liberal arts—grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy—were considered to be the foundational thinking skills. In the age of generative AI, core skills such as writing, mathematics, communication, and knowledge about the world, need to be rethought. For example, the ‘writing synthesizer’ hypothesis discussed in this report suggests that writing could soon involve generative AI systems in novel ways in the writing process, re- and deconstructing writing, and redefining what we mean by it. AI systems are already used in problem-solving, mathematics, writing human language and computer programs, and in visual arts and in music analysis and production. To understand the impact on educational practices, well-elaborated use cases are needed that show how generative AI could be used in various educational settings, and what policy implications such uses would have.”
“The Next Internet will profoundly change the social and cognitive infrastructures of knowing, learning, and action. Over the coming decade, technological developments, including 6G networks, immersive technologies, and new distributed data and processing architectures will fuse digital, material, cognitive, and social realities in ways that we have not seen before.”
“AI is already influencing many educational processes and practices, with important implications for teaching, learning and assessment. Recent developments in generative AI suggest that agency can be distributed between AI-systems and human learners.”
As the report considers large language models you can listen to Episode 14 of my podcast The Board and Paper Talks where I talk with Allison Parrish about AI, large language models and her body of work.
EU Kids Online 2020
15th Sep 2023
Today I’m starting my blog by sharing “EU Kids Online 2020: Survey results from 19 countries.” (full report: https://www.lse.ac.uk/media-and-communications/assets/documents/research/eu-kids-online/reports/EU-Kids-Online-2020-10Feb2020.pdf). This report presents the findings from a survey of children aged 9–16 from 19 European countries. The data were collected between autumn 2017 and summer 2019 from 25,101 children by national teams from the EU Kids Online network. The aim is to provide crucial information highlighting the patterns of current technology use and the related positive and negative experiences of children aged 9–16, mapping the online access, practices, skills and current risks and opportunities of internet use among European children. This report specifically describes four main areas:
(1) access (how children access the internet and how much time they spend there);
(2) practices and skills (what children do online and how skilled they are when using the internet);
(3) risks and opportunities (the specific activities or experiences that can lead to harm or to a positive outcome, including overall negative experiences, online aggression and cyberbullying, encountering potentially harmful content, experiencing data misuse, excessive internet use, sexting, seeing sexual images, meeting new people online and preference for online communication);
(4) social context (other actors who affect children’s engagement with the internet with specific focus on mediation, sharenting and children’s perceptions of the online environment).
While the report is intended to be of access and use for a broad audience, it is definitely interesting to parents striving to gain a better insight into their children’s technology use and to get a broader picture about the issues being debated, such as those concerning online risks. Talking with children about their internet use, sharing online activities, and explaining what is good and bad on the internet (active mediation), is considered the most desirable type of mediation because it is connected to higher digital skills, it enhances children’s understanding of the internet and makes them better equipped to interpret and deal with media content and potentially bothering situations online.
The questionnaire used for the survey was designed to include questions that would enable to seek a deeper understanding of how children’s engagement with the internet is dependent on individual factors, including age and gender, their socioeconomic and cultural background, personality traits, disabilities, opportunities to access the internet, level of different types of skills and how they use the internet. This includes how general psychological well-being, such as feelings of safety and belonging, is linked to (digital) well-being. With the more recent rise of the Internet of Things and the Internet of Toys, the internet has become more and more ubiquitously embedded in children’s everyday lives. For most children across Europe, smartphones are now the preferred means of going online. This often means that they have ‘anywhere, anytime’ connectivity, with the majority of children reporting using their smartphones daily or almost all the time. Children’s online experiences have changed considerably over the past decade, with YouTube becoming increasingly popular, and with national social networking sites giving way to Instagram and other prominent apps. Watching videos, listening to music, communicating with friends and family, visiting a social networking site and playing online games top the list of activities that children do on a daily basis. Country differences are considerable, however. Age differences are much greater, in part reflecting the age limits set by most platforms as well as the greater interest in online socialising of older than younger children.
EU Kids Online 2020: Survey results from 19 countries. This report maps the internet access, online practices, skills, online risks and opportunities for children aged 9–16 in Europe. Teams of the EU Kids Online network collaborated between autumn 2017 and summer 2019 to conduct a major survey of 25,101 children in 19 European countries. Smahel, D., Machackova, H., Mascheroni, G., Dedkova, L., Staksrud, E., Ólafsson, K., Livingstone, S., and Hasebrink, U. (2020). EU Kids Online 2020: Survey results from 19 countries. EU Kids Online. Doi: 10.21953/lse.47fdeqj01ofo