Month: March 2026

Prompt From “The Thing From The Future”

Describe or narrate a scenario about a beverage found a century into a future in which order is deliberately coordinated or imposed. Your description should address issues related to environment and elicit feelings of contentment.

Narrative

It is the year 2126 and the government has imposed exact times for all human beings to quench their thirst. A government movement called “The Coalition for Organized Human Activity” (or COHA) was formed in 2115 to reduce the human race’s ecological footprint. The government knows when you’ll be thirsty, they’ve conditioned the human response of being thirsty with the sound of a light bell. Every hour between 7:00 am and 8:00 pm, the bells dings and all humanity takes a drink, perfectly in sync. Each drink is automatically replenished, individualized based on their body’s needs and the limits of the planet.

The drink tastes a little different to each person, so it is aptly titled “Personaliquid”.

The cups of “Personaliquid” are simply left outside to replenish. Feeding off the airborne algae, moisture and special minerals created by harvesters from COHA. These harvesters ensure production never exceeds the planet’s capabilities. The air is the cleanest it has been in years. Initially, the world needed to be convinced that syncing their thirst was necessary. I share with you the first advertising song played for our citizens. In 2126, advertising is no longer needed as the world’s population fully supports and believes in “Personaliquid”.

Song created with the use of Suno AI.

Prompt: What downtown Nanaimo will look like in 10 years, greener but more populated, on a sunny day rendered in a photorealistic image.

Next Prompt: Same angle of downtown Nanaimo but what it will look like in 50 years, greener and even more populated, on a sunny day rendered in a photorealistic image.

Reflection: I had never explored Microsoft Copilot before, only ever using Chat GPT for AI purposes. I was surprised by how intuitive and easy to use it was for someone with limited experience using AI. I decided to submit a prompt to generate an image based on my hometown of Nanaimo, curious to see how Copilot would envision my city’s future. I gave Copilot two prompts asking to envision Nanaimo’s future both 10 and 50 years from now, prioritizing the city’s current emphasis on getting greener but also recognizing the population growth the city’s been experiencing.

The results impressed me in that they looked somewhat realistic at first glance and clearly made good use of existing images of our downtown core. the 10-year image was more grounded than the 50-year image, showing the added infrastructure for the increased population and dedicated green spaces. The 50-year image was similar but had more science fiction elements: flying vehicles, futuristic building designs and a floating park. The generated images were pretty close to what I had imagined, though I did picture downtown looking less clean than these images would suggest.

I assumed that the model uses a vast amount of training data to generate images, using different data for the 10-years and 50-years prompts. The model assumed its user would envision a very realistic difference in the 10-year image, and a more dramatic and spacey design for the 50-year image. When envisioning the 50-year image, I did not picture any flying or floating machines.

Using Copilot to generate these images felt like an impressive collaboration considering it was my first time using the program and there was no history of my prompts. I assume that my mainly used AI program, Chat GPT, would be able to render images that included our previous conversation history together. Copilots ability to process the specific language I used and generate an image is a reminder of how much development has occurred with the way humans and machines communicate.

The game “User Inyerface” by Bagaar was a purposely manipulative experience designed to trick and mislead users. I was instantly frustrated by the first page, noticing undesirable actions displayed in bright buttons, distracting countdowns and unnecessary imagery as well as confusing colour schemes. Had I not known to be ready for distraction and confusion, I could have easily clicked on wrong buttons.

One example of a dark pattern used in this game is the misleading use of buttons. Unlikely user actions are given bright/big buttons, or they are automatically selected. Entering an address number involves clicking by increments of one at a time, luckily my address number is below 200. Counterintuitive placements of buttons further confuse the user, an example being checkboxes placed above an image rather than below. Popups frequently distract the user as they try to fill out the form, with a very small close action that is misspelled. Users are heavily influenced by design, and this is an excellent game to remind users to think while filling out online forms.

This activity helped me understand how easy a user can be manipulated if their attention is diverted elsewhere. The consumer is constantly tricked in subtle ways by clever distractions from these interfaces. While I don’t imagine this will influence me to read the entire “terms and conditions” from the next interface I encounter, I will certainly be using my future interfaces with a different mindset.

After the .json file was uploaded into the Palladio app, the graph displayed clusters of other students who shared the same music selections from the Golden Record. The clusters suggested that several students in this course had similar music preferences, or had complimentary views on what music best represents the human race. Circling back to my reflection in task 8, there is a heavy North American/European bias on display here. An example of this was that almost all students in the course selected “Johnny B. Goode” in their top ten. 

This visualization could be misleading, however, as it only displays each students’ final top ten selections rather than the reasoning or reflections behind each decision. Each student chose their top ten through a different lens, experience and bias. For most of my personal selections, I tried my best to incorporate a historical perspective that would best capture humanity. Despite my best efforts, personal preference played a heavy hand in my final selections. Other participants in the quiz may have been able to better ignore their personal preferences or further leaned into them. “Pygymy Girls’ Initiation Song” only appearing on three lists leads me to the assumption that several students have a closer personal connection to North American/European music than from other cultures. 

A significant limitation of this visualization is the lack of “null choices”, only displaying the final selected tracks but not the omitted ones with their varied reasons for not being included. Some students may not have included certain music pieces worrying of them being overselected, lack of personal connection/understanding or fearing of cultural appropriation. The important thinking process that leads to each student’s decision is invisible in this graph, resulting in an oversimplified representation of complicated human decisions. The clusters of shared music selections falsely portrays communities that are likely more far apart in their experiences and thinking than alluded to in the visualization. 

The political ramifications of collecting this type of data can be damaging. When data is used to group people based on incomplete information, it can lead to false connections and stereotypes. Social media algorithms or other data-driven advertising groups could  use this incomplete information in damaging ways that do not truly represent its targeted audience. All in all, the Palladio visualization provided a set of limited connections that are interesting to see but lacks depth and human complexity. If there were a method to synthesize the reasoning behind each track selection in all task 8 entries to include in this graph, we would be able to receive deeper meaning from this visualization.

The Golden Record was a fascinating event to learn about. Two Golden Records were sent into space with the purpose of reaching other intelligent life. I wonder how different music selection would have been had these records been created today. Since these records were launched in 1977, it makes sense that the medium on which the music would be played is an LP. Had these been sent into space today, I imagine a digital download would be the medium of choice.

Curating a list of 10 songs based on the 27 originally included in the LP was a challenging task. How can one sum up the vast history of communication through music with such a short list of music? Here are my ten curated choices from the Golden Record:

1. German: Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. – Glenn Gould, piano
2. Austria: Mozart, The Magic Flute, Queen of the Night aria, no. 14 – Edda Moser, soprano. Bavarian State Opera, Munich, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor
3. New Guinea: men’s house song – recorded by Robert MacLennan
4. United States: Navajo Indians, Night Chant – recorded by Willard Rhodes
5. United States: “Johnny B. Goode” – written and performed by Chuck Berry
6. India: raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho” – sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar
7. United States: “Dark Was the Night” – written and performed by Blind Willie Johnson
8. Mexico: “El Cascabel” – performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México
9. Japan: shakuhachi, “Tsuru No Sugomori” (“Crane’s Nest,”) – performed by Goro Yamaguchi
10. German: Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor

The thinking behind the ten songs I selected prioritized styles from different cultures, human emotion and a variety of instruments. Despite keeping these aspects in mind, I found myself choosing too many pieces from North America and Europe, having experienced more education on the influence that those songs had on our culture. I wanted to include a variety of genres, to demonstrate to other lifeforms the many different ways human beings have creatively expressed themselves through music. Each piece I selected communicates strong emotions, often without the use of a human voice to make the music easier for other intelligent life to comprehend. With a longer list, I feel I could better represent more parts of our world, but I stand by my selected ten despite the clear personal bias.