Use Your Illusion: AI loves tech and you don’t have to

I recently read a paper that was able to quantitatively illustrate something I already knew from qualitative experience: LLMs love tech: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328725001673?via%3Dihub. Even when I ask it for social trends or political trends, it ends up giving me technology trends.

LLMs are trained and programmed by techno-optimists. So, it should be no surprise that everybody’s favorite chatbot prefers to talk about technology saving the day, especially itself.

I have yet to find any evidence that the AI companies are specifically filling their machines with self-referential marketing and propaganda. However, I’m not sure they would need to. Everyone loves a good tech investment. Emerging technology is one of the primary drivers of the global economy. The key is to not be fooled by the output, think about it critically, and to use the output for your own purposes.

In fact, I’ll be speaking about this on Tuesday 18 November at the Online Facilitation Unconference. Of course, I’ve written on this topic before, Automating Liminality in Foresight Practice * Journal of Futures Studies. Now, I’m presenting these finding and facilitating a workshop afterward.

Here’s the blurb from the unconference:

“Use Your Illusion: Hallucinations & The Future of Online Workshop Facilitation” in Lane 1: AI in the Room is the provocative session you need at #OFU2025. AI hallucinations are a key feature for diverse future thinking, not a bug.

This session presents the theory from “Automating Liminality in Foresight Practice.” After exploring the history of automation, you’ll learn a powerful three-step process—critical, liminal, and creative thinking—to transform inaccurate AI output into innovative insights. The session culminates in a practical workshop on the future of online workshop facilitation, using collaboration tools to find and enhance AI-generated scenarios, demonstrating AI as an augmentation for human creativity.

He is a Foresight Director & Epiphany Architect, focused on helping people use future trends to unlock creative solutions today.

Their top piece of advice for navigating the Intelligent Age? Hallucinations are the feature, not the bug. They can help us think more liminally and creatively about a topic, assuming we can think critically enough to identify them.

Ready to turn AI ‘errors’ into creative insights for your online workshops? Get your ticket for OFU:
https://lnkd.in/ecmeZv7j. Join the conversation, and you can use the code LASTMINUTE to get a 50% discount on the ticket.