The Next Years, and a Conclusion

All courses / Landscape / Module 4 / Chapter 20

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

• Classify statements about the next years as observable, expected or speculation, with the evidence the chapter gives.
• Write a projection in the chapter's form: claim, label, evidence and what would show it wrong.
• Explain what would change each measured answer of the test, and why two answers cannot change.
• Draft the Monday list for one organisation and commit to a date for the next rendering.

Key concepts

Wrong in a reviewable way

The practice of AI Governance, Chapter 22: state each trend, classify its evidence, assign a horizon and set a review date. The Commission's dashboard is the model: it leaves each year's superseded baseline beside the new one.

Expected, with whose evidence

Expected means strong evidence with uncertain timing or form within five years. The chapter follows each expected statement with its evidence and says whose expectation it is, such as the Commission's baseline reaching 54.28 per cent in 2030.

Speculation justifies reversibility

Speculation is plausible, consequential and not yet evidenced. The book's rule is that it justifies reversibility, not commitment, and that it is written down so that it can be wrong on the record.

The form of a projection

Each of the four projections in the chapter carries the claim, its label, the evidence and what would show it wrong, because a projection that cannot be shown wrong is a mood. The manuscript marks them as drafted for the author's confirmation.

A reasonable hope that demands work

The possibilist close: the picture is quieter than either story told about it and the designs that govern it exist, yet none of it happens by itself. The hope rests on the quiet picture and the designs, not on the count of three incidents.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Teaching plan

Discussion

1. Twelve of the fourteen answers are expected to change at the next survey, snapshot or instrument, and two are history. What does a test whose answers move teach about the landscape it measures?
2. The chapter leaves out the projection most readers want, whether AI at work will be good or bad for the people in it. Why do the data and the stance not permit it, and what does the chapter offer in its place?
3. The comfort of three entries among 1,498 classified incidents is limited, because a tail event would not appear in the record until it had happened. On what does the chapter rest its hope instead?

Written exercise

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

1. Which of these statements does the chapter place under Expected, and on what evidence?

   1. That a public authority in the EU lets an agent act at Level 3 Bounded on a resident's case within five years, because vendors forecast it
   2. That the next Eurostat enterprise survey reports a higher share than 19.95 per cent, because the share has risen at every survey since 2021
   3. That the next amendment of the AI Act defers the Annex III date again, because a date that has moved once can move
   4. That a system escapes control and causes catastrophic harm, because the incident database holds three entries
   Show the answer

   B. That the next Eurostat enterprise survey reports a higher share than 19.95 per cent, because the share has risen at every survey since 2021
   The rise at the next survey is expected, though its size is not evidenced and the chapter gives no figure. The other three are listed under Speculation: plausible, consequential and not yet evidenced.

2. In the table of the test retaken, why can the answers to Questions 3 and 9 not change?

   1. Because Eurostat has stopped running the AI module, so no later value will replace the two answers
   2. Because both rest on vendor surveys that will not be repeated
   3. Because both are fixed by Regulation (EU) 2026/1744
   4. Because they are history: two published past values, and a 2023 baseline that is a document
   Show the answer

   D. Because they are history: two published past values, and a 2023 baseline that is a document
   Question 3 concerns the change between 2021 and 2023, and the past does not move without a revision of the published values. Question 9 concerns the baseline computed in 2023, which is a document. The other twelve are expected to change.

3. What do the chapter's projections have in common in their form?

   1. Each carries a label, its evidence and a statement of what would show it wrong
   2. Each is labelled observable, because it rests on adopted legislation
   3. Each gives a single number for 2030 without a range
   4. Each concerns Nordvik Region and Hansa Mutual only
   Show the answer

   A. Each carries a label, its evidence and a statement of what would show it wrong
   Each projection is labelled expected or speculation and says what would show it wrong, because a projection that cannot be shown wrong is a mood. They are confined to one marked section of this chapter.