Imagining AI Futures
Encouraging young people to think wildly imaginatively about how AI might shape learning in the decades ahead.
University of Edinburgh · Centre for Research in Digital Education
Jen Ross · Judy Robertson · Cara Wilson · Tommy Lawson · Goodison Group in Scotland · Elspeth Maxwell
Editorial design · Educational design · Visual concepting · Graphic design
2025
The Challenge
Design a classroom activity that makes speculative thinking engaging, aligning with curriculum goals whilst sparking a little creative chaos.
Teachers need something tangible to facilitate discussion and meet curriculum benchmarks for meta-skills like collaboration, communication, and critical thinking; pupils need something that prompts them to fully engage in imaginative thinking and encourages them to offer up their own response.
Our Approach
We treated each imagined future scenario, from the Quantum Classroom to AI-trained Buddybots, as a creative launchpad.
Visually, the work embraces surrealism: floating worlds, layered dimensions, even hammerhead sharks drifting through imagined realities. The palette and composition intentionally feel dreamlike and disorienting.
Every element, from typography to layout rhythm, encourages readers to think wider, stranger, freer.