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What does it mean to teach each other what the world is?
What does it mean to teach each other what the world is?
Our generation has been told the future has been cancelled—that climate change, AI, the housing crisis, and demographic collapse have foreclosed all hope. But this pessimism says more about the limits of imagination than about the actual possibilities before us.
Welcome to The Worldbuilding Project, a program where high school students meet to imagine and prototype better futures. We research, host guest speakers, conduct scenario planning, and create tangible artifacts of our imagined worlds. Our thinking is intentionally collaborative; our method is itself a model for the kind of collective agency the future demands.
No one can predict how AI will reshape society, but history suggests that transformations in production and cognition always lead to new social contracts. Just as the Enlightenment followed the Industrial Revolution, the outsourcing of thought may force us to renegotiate what it means to be human. Collective worldbuilding as the beginning of that negotiation: an acknowledgment that our shared imagination is itself a civic responsibility.
Worldbuilding Project is a student-founded and student-run collaboration between students at Canyon Crest Academy and O'Farrell Charter School, two public high schools in the San Diego area.
The Charter
The Charter
We have been given a solely pessimistic view of the state of the world and the future of it. Access to information and social algorithms have exacerbated this.
We resist pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The next 10 to 20 years will be a time of immense change, and if our generation is going to step into a changed world, we should start thinking about it now.
The Methodology
The Methodology
Worldbuilding is a combination of research and scenario planning to prototype possible socio-technical futures. An important aspect of Worldbuilding is its integration of both humanities and STEM based possibilities in its thinking in the form of longer term formalized thought experiments.
In Worldbuilding, we use five major elements to ensure quality and diversity of thought.
1) We brainstorm interesting social and technological topics as a group so we are working on the same page and are clear with what we mean when we use certain terms.
2)We vote on which combination of social and technological topics would be most relevant to both us and the world around us, as we wish to ensure that our conversations are based on topics we are passionate about.
3)We volunteer individually on which “realities” we will cover, which ensures that all possible combinations are covered to their fullest extent, as well as letting people take the scenarios they are particularly interested in.
4)We work independently within each of the “realities” such that everyone participating can fully flesh out their own ideas, rather than needing to compromise in a manner that would arise from a single large group.
5) We come together to discuss our related works to each other, finding the interesting similarities and differences we come up with, often with scenarios that are not clearly “good realities” or “bad realities,” but more real, with pros and cons.
6)After having discussions about possible futures, we work asynchronously on concrete outputs that are relevant to the conversation topic, summing up our thoughts on the topic we cover, with output that is different for each topic we cover.
For example, for our discussion of Effects of AI in the Classroom, we did an AI Model Spec/AI Constitution for Education in the manner of the OpenAI Model Spec.
AI in Education
AI in Education
Our first build pushed back against the fear-based narratives that dominate public discussion. We realized none of our districts had a coherent vision for AI, so we made one: a Model Spec. It’s written from the student perspective outlining how AI could expand access, creativity, and critical thought without undermining human learning.
High school students were the perfect group to attempt this—we are close enough to the technology to use it intuitively, yet far enough from institutional inertia to imagine it differently. That balance of skepticism and curiosity became our strength.
AI in Education Model Spec HERE
Who We Are
Lucien Bratton
Lucien Bratton
Lucien Bratton is the Founder of Worldbuilding Project and a senior at Canyon Crest Academy, he loves to hike, play guitar, and read Sci-Fi.
Afina Liang
Afina Liang
Afina is very happy to be one of the co-founders for the Worldbuilding project. She describes herself as a silly individual who likes to read existential literature, listen to Chinese rnb, and hangout with Dodo (dog in pic).
Cathy Ji
Cathy Ji
Cathy is a co-founder of Worldbuilding and CCA senior who is passionate about ethics and law. In her free time, she likes to hang out with friends, read, and drink boba.
Brunda Unadi
Brunda Unadi
Brunda is so excited to be a co-founder of Worldbuilding this year. A senior at CCA, she loves reading, baking, and listening to RnB.
Benjamin Bratton
Benjamin Bratton
Benjamin is a Professor at UC San Diego and an advisor to Worldbuilding Project.
Dominic Cooper
Dominic Cooper
As a faculty advisor, I help students understand that imagining the future is a communal act, rooted in shared inquiry, cultural humility, and the wisdom their communities already hold. My role is to nurture a collaborative space where young people can dream boldly, question critically, and design futures grounded in justice, connection, and collective care.
Slideshows
High Censorship + Apolitical
High Censorship + Apolitical
High security + Apolitical. Apolitical and highly secure AI in the classroom can enhance learning by offering reliable support while also encouraging debate by presenting well-reasoned opposing perspectives without steering students toward any particular viewpoint.
High Censorship + Politicized
High Censorship + Politicized
High security technology, when paired with high government censorship, poses a risk to diversity. Users become confined to a state-sanctioned “echo chamber,” where their viewpoints are constantly reaffirmed by the narratives of their originating country, preventing exposure to critical thought.
Increased Individuality + Increased Performance
Increased Individuality + Increased Performance
A future of very individuated models that adapt and learn the preferences of its user, in combination with increased academic performance by conventional metrics. The widespread adoption of highly efficient and personalized models resulting in a Californian miracle of tech innovation relative to the tof the UC system.
Decreased Individuality + Decreased Performance
Decreased Individuality + Decreased Performance
Centralization + Improved performance. Centralized AI can boost student performance by offering consistent feedback and targeted practice at scale, but it also risks undermining individual learning by enforcing uniform teaching models, amplifying embedded biases, and narrowing how mastery is defined.
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