We start the new year by bringing you a fresh perspective on key sources of concern for American society at large and the workforce development sector in particular: AI disruption in the workplace and education, and the many challenges presented by our rapidly aging population. For Professor Mitchell Stevens of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, a shift from anxiety to optimism about these changes is urgently needed. “I’m not trying to say that the future will be all good, but that the future can only be good if everyday people, politicians and corporate leaders sort of ambitiously anticipate a positive future and then imagine ways to build it,” says Stevens, who helps lead Stanford’s Center for Longevity and its Learning Society Initiative. Thinking about aging as longevity instead, and working to extend the functional part of our lives through better health and educational opportunities is a prime example of this mindset. Other recommendations he offers include:

• Recognize that schooling and learning are not the same and reward learning wherever it occurs;

• Link conversations about AI, aging and the future of work;

• Draw on lessons learned from previous responses to mass economic disruption caused by technological advancement.

Join Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan for a deeply-informed and encouraging contemplation of how to leverage this current moment of consequential change.