Speculative Futures
Prompt given to Microsoft Copilot:
In approximately 500 words, describe or narrate a scenario about an artwork found a millennium into a future in which society as we know it has come apart. Your descriptions should address issues related to the environment and elicit feelings of contentment.
Response from Copilot:
A millennium after the last great cities dissolved into wind‑softened ruins, a pair of wanderers crossed a valley where the earth had reclaimed nearly everything. What remained of human presence was subtle—stone outlines of foundations, the faint geometry of old roads now braided with roots, and, on this particular morning, something half‑buried beneath a drift of wild grasses. It was a panel of carved wood, smoothed by time but still warm with intention, as if the hands that shaped it had only just stepped away.
The artwork depicted a grove of trees rising from a circular pool, their branches interwoven in a pattern that suggested both shelter and celebration. The colors—faded but still discernible—were soft greens, ochres, and blues, pigments drawn from minerals and plants that had long since returned to the soil. The scene felt impossibly serene. Even the air around it seemed to hush, as though the land recognized a memory of itself.
The wanderers knelt beside it. They lived in a world where communities were small and nomadic, moving with the seasons rather than against them. Their lives were shaped by the rhythms of rivers and migrating herds, by the slow patience of regrowth. They had heard stories of the old world—of its noise, its speed, its hunger—but those stories felt distant, almost mythic. This artwork, however, felt familiar. It reflected the world as they knew it: quiet, cyclical, and deeply alive.
One of them traced a fingertip along the carved lines of the trees. The wood was cool, but not lifeless. It carried the faint scent of cedar, a species that had nearly vanished during the centuries of collapse but had since returned in scattered groves. The artwork seemed to celebrate that return, as though its creator had imagined a future where nature would outlast the turmoil of their own time.
They lifted the panel carefully and carried it to their camp, where others gathered to see. The artwork became a kind of hearth—an object around which stories were told. Some believed it was a relic of hope, created by someone who sensed the world was changing and wanted to leave behind a reminder of what mattered. Others thought it was simply an expression of gratitude for the land, a gesture of reverence that transcended the centuries.
As evening settled, the group placed the artwork against a smooth stone and sat in a loose circle around it. The sky shifted from gold to violet, and the first stars appeared. The valley hummed with the soft sounds of insects and distant water. In that moment, the artwork felt less like a discovery and more like a homecoming—a quiet affirmation that even through upheaval, the human impulse to honor beauty had endured.
The wanderers slept peacefully that night, comforted by the sense that they were part of a long, unbroken thread of caretakers. The artwork, resting beside them, seemed to glow faintly in the moonlight, as if pleased to have been found again.
Reflection:
For this task, I used Microsoft Copilot to explore a speculative prompt: In approximately 500 words, describe or narrate a scenario about an artwork found a millennium into a future in which society as we know it has come apart. Your descriptions should address issues related to the environment and elicit feelings of contentment.
I was pleasantly surprised when I began reading Copilot’s response, as the writing was rich with detail and descriptive literary devices. It used evocative phrases such as “braided with roots” and “a panel of carved wood, smoothed by time but still warm with intention, as if the hands that shaped it had only just stepped away.” Rather than relying on simplistic comparisons and explanations, the narrative built and showed meaning through sensory detail and strong descriptive language. In addition, it followed the directions of the prompt I gave, showing a post-collapse future, but maintaining a calm, reflective tone throughout, eliciting the sense of contentment I requested. Overall, Copilot successfully fulfilled the basic requirements of the task outlined in the prompt I entered.
However, several limitations were also evident in the generated response, most notably, the reliance on familiar tropes and predictable imagery. The depiction of the post-apocalyptic world Copilot describes closely mirrors depictions in novels and films, including the presence of “wanderers” who live in small communities and explore the natural world left over from the collapse of nations. Copilot did not produce descriptions or ideas that haven’t already existed in popular culture, demonstrating that AI is often recombining and recycling common narratives. While the overall narrative is polished and filled with elevated literary elements, the true concepts and ideas lack the originality that one might expect from human creative writing. Additionally, although the prompt asked Copilot to address environmental issues, the response only does so superficially. The setting is described as environmentally rich, but the narrative doesn’t discuss the causes, consequences, or regeneration process the environment experienced as a result of human turmoil. This further reveals that although the AI can produce a narrative, it provides a more surface-level analysis of these critical issues.
Through this speculative task, it becomes clear that AI is not an independent idea-producing agent, but rather, what Shannon Vallor (2018) describes, “a mirror of society.” AI systems are trained on human-generated data and desired principles (Vallor, 2018), and reflect already existing cultural patterns, values, and assumptions that humans have. Since the AI is designed by human programmers and pulls from information that already exists, it does not formulate new thoughts and ideas, limiting the strength of its output. In this case, Copilot successfully produced a descriptive and engaging narrative, but it relied heavily on pre-existing tropes and ideas, demonstrating that AI can reshape ideas to meet the requests of its users, but falls short on originality and depth. Overall, this shows that although these systems are powerful tools for structuring and polishing ideas, they do not possess the independent creativity that human writers can, limiting true critical engagement and unique perspectives.
References
Santa Clara University. (2018, November 6). Lessons from the AI mirror: Shannon Vallor [Video]. YouTube.