At the SCRIPTS workshop, I was one of three “science fiction experts” tasked with supporting groups of five participants in developing scenarios for AI futures over the next ten years. Each group was assigned a specific type of scenario: one dystopian, one utopian, and one ambivalent. My role was to guide the utopian scenario. Ironically, I have always been somewhat sceptical of utopias. After all, the idea of a “perfect society” can easily slide into authoritarianism. Moreover, previous workshops had shown me that positive visions of the future often turn out either clichéd (“We have flying cars and household robots”) or based on unrealistic assumptions about human nature (“If people are sufficiently informed, they will automatically make the right decisions”). As a result, such scenarios rarely provide meaningful guidance for action in the here and now.

Yet my initial scepticism quickly gave way to determination: could we create a vision of the future in which we would genuinely want to live? Challenge accepted.

We began by discussing which AI applications we would like to see in the future. The result was a rich and varied picture: fair and efficient healthcare supported by AI systems; AI-assisted education that gives teachers more room to foster discussion and dialogue; digital assistants acting as bridges between citizens and public administration; digital sovereignty and open-source applications; and regulation that prohibits business models whose algorithms encourage social division.

The next step was to translate these ideas into a lived reality. On a flipchart, we sketched the future life of a teenager named Kai and followed a typical day in order to explore our vision in practice. Kai lives in a society characterised by self-efficacy, meaningful relationships, and active civic participation. AI operates largely in the background, creating opportunities for learning, engagement, and social connection. At the heart of this future is not the technology itself, but the question of how it can support individual flourishing, social cohesion, and democratic participation.

Everyone in the group was enthusiastic about this imagined future. One participant in particular was deeply moved. He told us that he had never before thought so positively about the future and that this was the most important insight he had gained from the workshop. If something can be imagined, he said, it can also be realised.

That moment has stayed with me because it highlighted how rarely we take the time to reflect collectively on the kind of society in which we actually want to live. In business, politics, and the media, attention is often focused on the latest technological developments, rather than on how these technologies might contribute to the common good and strengthen social cohesion.

Yet in a workshop lasting only three hours, with just one hour devoted to scenario-building, a group of very different people succeeded in creating an inspiring vision of the future—one that can help guide our actions in everyday life, at work, and in voluntary or civic engagement. And perhaps that is how change begins: by imagining a future worth striving for and taking the first step towards making it a reality.