The Practice Lab began with two kickoff sessions that invited participants to reflect on how AI is already showing up in sustainability transformations work.
Rather than starting with tools, trends, or technical claims, the sessions began from lived practice. Participants shared examples of using AI for note synthesis, teaching design, learning support, and making complex material easier to engage with.
The conversations revealed a productive tension that will carry forward through the Lab. Many practitioners are finding AI useful, fast, and surprisingly powerful. At the same time, participants raised serious questions about trust, hallucination, low-quality outputs, dependency, deskilling, democratic legitimacy, and the possible loss of tacit knowledge.
Several strong threads emerged:
- AI use is already part of transformation practice, but unevenly.
Participants ranged from occasional users to daily users, creating space for shared learning across different levels of experience, confidence, and caution. - The language of “AI” needs care.
The group noted that AI is often treated as shorthand for generative AI or large language models, even though the field is much broader. This matters because imprecise language can hide important ethical, political, and practical differences. - Human expertise remains essential.
AI tools were seen as most useful when practitioners had enough subject knowledge to question outputs, catch errors, and protect nuance. - Trust is a central challenge.
Participants discussed the gap between people who are enthusiastic about AI and those who distrust it, especially when early experiences involve hallucinations, low-quality outputs, or overconfident claims. - Wise AI use is not the same as more AI use.
The group recognized that choosing not to use AI may sometimes be the most responsible or values-aligned decision. - Education and learning emerged as a promising area of inquiry.
Several examples focused on teaching, transformative learning, teacher support, interactive knowledge tools, and the role of AI in making complex ideas more accessible.
As Ollie Bream McIntosh reflected during the session:
“One of the wisest things you might do — or the most values-aligned thing you might do — is decide, ‘I don’t want to use AI at all.”
These kickoff sessions set the direction for the next phase of the Practice Lab: moving from individual examples toward shared inquiry, workflow mapping, ethical reflection, and practical wisdom around AI use in sustainability transformations.
