“The stability of our world rests on a substance that is unstable at the core.”
In 2011, I was in Portland, Oregon, for a friend’s wedding and stumbled into Powell’s City of Books. After hours of perusing the new and used shelves, I picked up a slightly tattered, bright orange book titled Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World. I read the first few pages sitting on the floor of the bookshop and was riveted.
If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend the dip into a time in history when a seemingly simple rock changed the world, fueling extraordinary progress and unimaginable destruction. What stayed with me most wasn’t just uranium’s power, but who controlled it, how quickly decisions were made, and how few individuals were involved with how it was deployed. It feels particularly relevant as many of us grapple with the propulsion of Artificial Intelligence in our current times, wondering just how much it will change the world, how we relate, how we govern, and how we survive.
When powerful technologies are shaped by a few, the outcomes reflect the priorities of a few. The benefits and harms are not evenly distributed. And by the time the rest of the world is invited into the conversation, the trajectory is already set.
The question is not whether AI will reshape our world. It is who gets to shape AI.
There are many “what ifs” with AI:
What if AI replaces entire sectors of the workforce?
What if it accelerates solutions to climate change?
What if it deepens inequality?
What if it requires such vast infrastructure that it reshapes our environment in unintended ways?
These are important questions, but the moral imperative is not just to imagine possible futures, but to collectively design them.
That means building new ways for people, including communities, workers, families, and those most vulnerable to disruption, to actively shape what AI becomes.
This is the work we are practicing through our Collaboratories at Elevated Denver: bringing together lived experts and cross-sector leaders to co-design solutions, ensuring those most impacted are not an afterthought, but architects of what comes next.
If we believe AI will define a better future, then it must be shaped by all of us.
We already know how to do this. The tools exist, but the will must follow. Uranium showed us what happens when immense power is driven by greed, control, and urgency without a collective voice; AI will be no different unless we choose another path. The question is no longer whether a better future is possible; it’s whether we will build it together.
In 2011, I was in Portland, Oregon, for a friend’s wedding and stumbled into Powell’s City of Books. After hours of perusing the new and used shelves, I picked up a slightly tattered, bright orange book titled Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World. I read the first few pages sitting on the floor of the bookshop and was riveted.
If you haven’t read the book, I highly recommend the dip into a time in history when a seemingly simple rock changed the world, fueling extraordinary progress and unimaginable destruction. What stayed with me most wasn’t just uranium’s power, but who controlled it, how quickly decisions were made, and how few individuals were involved with how it was deployed. It feels particularly relevant as many of us grapple with the propulsion of Artificial Intelligence in our current times, wondering just how much it will change the world, how we relate, how we govern, and how we survive.
When powerful technologies are shaped by a few, the outcomes reflect the priorities of a few. The benefits and harms are not evenly distributed. And by the time the rest of the world is invited into the conversation, the trajectory is already set.
The question is not whether AI will reshape our world. It is who gets to shape AI.
There are many “what ifs” with AI:
What if AI replaces entire sectors of the workforce?
What if it accelerates solutions to climate change?
What if it deepens inequality?
What if it requires such vast infrastructure that it reshapes our environment in unintended ways?
These are important questions, but the moral imperative is not just to imagine possible futures, but to collectively design them.
That means building new ways for people, including communities, workers, families, and those most vulnerable to disruption, to actively shape what AI becomes.
This is the work we are practicing through our Collaboratories at Elevated Denver: bringing together lived experts and cross-sector leaders to co-design solutions, ensuring those most impacted are not an afterthought, but architects of what comes next.
If we believe AI will define a better future, then it must be shaped by all of us.
We already know how to do this. The tools exist, but the will must follow. Uranium showed us what happens when immense power is driven by greed, control, and urgency without a collective voice; AI will be no different unless we choose another path. The question is no longer whether a better future is possible; it’s whether we will build it together.