When Big Tech talks about their view of the future we may agree with them on various aspects, but the moment they assert that war will be part of it, they are no longer speaking about the future itself. Instead, they are revealing their own memories and beliefs translated into projections of various representations that they have internalized during their life. Furthermore, futuristic images of Big Tech involving AI and wars don’t align with my vision of the future—nor with the vision of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. We live in a global context dominated by instability and most people hope for the rise of a future without wars.
I recently followed an online discussion among Big Tech leaders working in the field of AI. I was astounded by their conversations. These leaders are role models for millions of people around the world, yet they were casually discussing the future technologies that will wage war against us—drones and other types of flying machines that, according to them, will be controlled by AI!
Indeed, for these guys, war is a feature of humanity’s collective future—and according to them it will be entirely robotized. But the most surprising thing is that millions of people accept the futurists vision of Big Tech without questioning it.
I believe that if so many accept this vision, it’s because these grim images are part of our culture and education. The images of wars have conditioned people to accept the use of violence and destruction to resolve conflicts between groups, fractions, and nations.
But the most negative aspect in these images is that they propel a charge towards the future. Given the fact that violent futuristic representations permeate the cultural products consumed by young people and children, we must seriously question the direction of our collective imagination.
It seems to me that the new generation’s imagination is being colonized by images and representations that are charged with violence. This charge of violence can be found everywhere: in comic books, movies, videos, games, on cereal boxes and even in songs (images with a charge of violence: guns, bombs, war robots, killing drones and other devices to kill).
We are preparing children and young people for a compelling, violent future and Big Tech knows it. Big tech corporations know the social, economical, and political repercussions of developing AI models that exhibit malicious behavior. Meanwhile, tehy are backed by massive funding from major investors. Without delving too deeply into that specific issue, perhaps we should re-examine our approach to the evolution of species in order to better understand AI’s problematic behaviors?
Unfortunately, it is not only Big Tech that are preparing our children for war; our politicians play a major role as well.
Last week the Canadian Prime Minister signed a major contract using public funds to manufacture lethal drones on a massive scale. Even if in Canada we live in a pacific for the last 150 years, this fact does not allow us to assume that things will be this way tomorrow!
Today the government and Big Tech are assigning a direction to our collective future. By developing weapons of wars their future is accompanied with a violent charge! This is not the charge most people want to see in their future!
In other words, our personal and collective future do not follow the linear succession of moments characteristic with present perception and past representation. The temporalities of consciousness operate independently of linear succession—unlike the hands of a clock. Images that colonize our collective imagination have a charge and participate actively in the deployment of a direction of time.
We must resist the colonization of violence in our collective imagination. We need to push for non-violent means to resolve social, political and economical conflicts. Education for Active Nonviolence aims to transform new generations’ memories of the future! We propose images with a useful charge to build a reality that new generations will love.
Young people’s imagery of the future
More than ten years ago, with a group of humanists, I conducted a study on young people’s imagery regarding the future. We posed a series of reflective questions about what lay ahead; essentially, we wanted to understand the visions of the future shared by young people. We were astonished to find that the vast majority envisioned a violent, terrifying future marked by constant warfare and—above all—natural disasters caused by climate change. We realize that like the previous generations, new generations are conditioned to accept violence as a way to interact between human living a conflict even it the future.
Following the study, we recommended that the Quebec government implement a program for active nonviolence; unfortunately, our recommendation went unheeded. Then we decided to develop a series of workshops to help young people cultivate a nonviolent vision of the future by proposing another direction.
Education for Active Nonviolence – workshop to resist the colonization of our imagination by violence
Draw me a future without wars – Run This Way program
The Run This Way program created workshops allowing students to use their imaginations to envision the kind of world they would like to live in—specifically, a world without war and violence. In essence, the workshop involved preparing the children for a journey through time.
For elementary students, the workshop theme was: Draw me a future without wars
We are traveling through time and arriving in the year 2051—in a world without war. Can you draw what you would pack in your suitcase to travel to a world without war?
For high school students, the workshop theme was: In 2051 we will live in a world without war and violence – what is this world like?
Can you explain how the human species was able to end war and violence ?
As of today, there are more than 50 conflicts worldwide. These conflicts threaten the future of multiple generations. This fall the Run This Way program is offering again these classroom workshops. Run This Way is a project of the 4th World March for Peace and Nonviolence. The volunteers in the program are working in collaboration with schools and various youth organizations.
Schools and youth organizations can join Run This Way by subscribing on the website
About the World March of Peace and Nonviolence
Since 2009, the team behind the 4th World March for Peace and Nonviolence has been working tirelessly to raise awareness among organizations, heads of state, businesses, and individuals, advocating for the implementation of diplomatic, nonviolent means of conflict resolution.
Active nonviolence is a moral force—a force of persuasion. It is a method of struggle used to assert rights, such as the right of future generations to a humane and nonviolent future.
