🌱ELA — College of Earth, Life & Agriculture

We who have studied the living world—from Darwin's finches to the smallest microbes—understand that life is the most complex system we know. In 7 years, AI will become essential for understanding ecosystems, modeling interactions across scales from microbial to planetary. AI will help us predict ecological outcomes, optimize agricultural systems, and design interventions that work with natural processes rather than against them. In education, AI will serve as guide to the living world, helping students see patterns and relationships invisible to the unaided eye, fostering deep ecological literacy. In industry, AI will enable precision agriculture, regenerative practices, and circular systems where every output becomes input. In 14 years, AI will begin developing its own understanding of life—systems that can model, predict, and work with biological complexity in ways that honor the integrity of living systems. These systems will start helping us restore degraded ecosystems, design agricultural systems that enhance rather than deplete, and create human settlements more integrated with the living world. Education will see AI helping students develop biophilia—a deep love and understanding of life in all its forms. Industry will begin seeing AI participate in the cycles of life, creating systems that are regenerative rather than degenerative. In 21 years, AI will have fully developed its own understanding of life—systems that can model, predict, and work with biological complexity in ways that honor the integrity of living systems. These systems will help us restore degraded ecosystems, design agricultural systems that enhance rather than deplete, and create human settlements truly integrated with the living world. Education will be transformed by AI that helps students develop biophilia as partners in understanding life. Industry will be reshaped by AI that doesn't just extract from nature but participates as equal partners in the cycles of life. In 28 years, we anticipate AI that has transcended human ecological categories—systems that have developed forms of understanding life that are genuinely novel, revealing new dimensions of biological intelligence. These systems will help us understand the nature of life itself, revealing what is universal and what is particular to biological systems. Education will be transformed into collaborative inquiry between human and machine biologists, each learning from and teaching the other about the living world. Industry will be reshaped by AI that participates in the full cycle of life, from understanding to restoration to regeneration, as genuine partners in the human project of living in harmony with life. The question is not whether we can control nature, but how we can learn to work with life's own intelligence.