Our future is up to no one but us.

For decades, science fiction has stoked our imaginations of self-piloting vehicles, household androids, and machine intelligence. Unsurprisingly, people have tirelessly worked toward what once seemed a fantastical impossibility and have now ushered in a new era—the age of artificial intelligence. Miraculous as it is, it challenges the way we understand our economies, our societies, our relationships, and our roles within them.

This isn’t intended to be doomsday soothsaying. Technology has already changed the way we behave and, therefore, the way we think. While we once spent our leisure time outside or in the company of friends and family, we now spend two-thirds of our time online. As industries wrestle with the merits of working from home, almost a quarter of Americans don’t report to an office and are deprived of the human interaction that has characterized “work” for time immemorial. Children are more likely to chat over Discord under the glow of a monitor than ride their bikes through the unknown corridors of their neighborhoods. How often have we been at a gathering and suddenly realized everyone present was looking at a phone? We’ve accidentally become indentured to the technology we invented to give us more freedom.

And now, as artificial intelligence becomes more of a practicality than a concept, another radical shift is underway. We are replacing tasks—sometimes even jobs or entire facilities—with AI platforms. Some fear we are making ourselves obsolete. Whether you believe that or not, it seems obvious that we need to quickly assess the value we provide our economies and societies.

We believe that the most valuable and vital individuals during this next chapter will be those who are knowledgeable and skilled in areas that we might consider more traditional or academic, such as the arts, humanities, and interpersonal skills. We strive to provide training and encouragement to that end.