Idea 12 for 2025: Consider Abundance

As the promise of spring takes root in my corner of the Northern Hemisphere, I am reminded of the notion of “abundant intelligences,” an international, Indigenous-led research project that is exploring the creation and flourishing of Indigenous epistemologies and worldviews through creative applications of AI. The researchers put forth a mindset of abundance to frame the revitalization and blossoming of new ways of imagining the world, instead of one fixated on scarcity with its connections to extraction and exploitation.

As I watch flowers bloom and deciduous trees sprout, as birds chirp and young squirrels and rabbits near toddlers on tricycles begin exploring their urban environment, I cherish the possibilities of springtime renewal and revitalization. Of course, I take the arrival and the promise of spring for granted, which, with the impacts of changing climate, I perhaps shouldn’t. However, I recently crafted a presentation and book chapter on creativity and through my research, stumbled upon the Abundant Intelligences research project. As I worry about the supplantation of human creativity by AI, and the very real encroachment on the rights and incomes of creators, I also discovered the imagination of artists using AI in novel ways in an exhibition that recently opened in Paris, as well as this notion of abundant intelligences.

This latter notion not only revitalizes attention to Indigenous reconciliation, salient in Canada and perhaps around the world, but also encourages us to transcend the zero-sum game of many scarcity mindsets and the ways we think and imagine many of our present systems and access to resources, political, economic, educational, health, legal, employment, and others.

By embracing abundance and connecting to the blooming possibilities of human ingenuity powered by AI, the notion of abundant intelligences encourage us to creatively imagine more and expansive horizons of thriving and flourishing for all beings, and not merely the few.