Ridiculous Futures ft Learning

“Any useful statement about the future should at first seem ridiculous.”
- Jim Dator

Last week I attended a talk by Shakil Ahmed where he spoke about this idea of ridiculous futures. I couldn’t help but wondering what ridiculous futures I could think of for learning. So here are my 15 -

1. Everyone everywhere loves learning.

2. Everyone understands how they learn best.

3. There is no new information that is created.

4. There is no ‘content’ - no textbooks, videos to go through while you’re learning something.

5. You can ingest a pill and learn something new.

6. There is an Olympics for learning. Sports are memory, application etc. No pills there.

7. There are no exams or assessments.

8. There is a blood test equivalent of learning that objectively measures how much you have truly learnt.

9. Homework is given in the form of video games.

10. Your entire brain exists on a hard drive. You can ask it questions using ChatGPT.

11. Un-learning is easy - you can ‘erase’ part of your mind.

12. There are no ‘teachers’ only facilitators.

13. You can also share parts of your hard drive with someone. They will understand information as you do.

14. Classrooms are no longer just cross-country, they are intergalactic.

15. You can communication with & learn from any living being.

These futures for learning are meant to be amusing and thought-provoking. While some of them might sound far-fetched, they illustrate the endless possibilities for the future of learning.

What Ridiculous Futures can you think of for the future of learning? Tell me in the comments below!