When Participation Becomes Programming
A Regenerative Response to the Smart City Kid
This reflection responds to the final entry in the Gen Beta persona series by futurists Alexandra Whittington and Joana Lenkova:
Introducing Gen Beta: The Smart City Kid
In this speculative future, children like Tervel Solara grow up in experimental smart cities—AI-mentored, task-guided, and optimized for civic contribution from birth.
I’ve been following the Gen Beta persona series from Alex and Joana with deep curiosity. Each scenario has sparked essential questions about the futures our children might inhabit. But this final persona — The Smart City Kid — hits a different note. Not because it’s unrealistic or too speculative, but because it feels attractive in ways that might be dangerous or misleading — by wrapping control in the language of care.
Here we meet Tervel Solara, a child raised entirely within an experimental smart city — no school, no wilderness, no unmediated nature. He doesn’t just live in the system; he’s shaped by it, optimized by it, and rewarded for participating in it. And he loves it.
That’s what makes me pause.
At first glance, this might appear to be a techno-utopian dream: early democratic participation, seamless AI mentorship, and coordinated urban innovation. But under the surface, a different pattern emerges — one where simulation replaces ecology, regulation replaces reciprocity, and childhood becomes a feedback loop for optimized governance.
Tervel isn’t learning from nature — he’s helping to maintain a synthetic version of it. He isn’t building relational intelligence — he’s growing up through task-based missions, rather than through open-ended relational experience. He isn’t growing up in a community — he’s interfacing with curated social experiences prescribed by an AI.
It’s hard not to feel like we’ve wandered into an episode of Black Mirror — not because the world is dystopian on the surface, but because it’s so well-designed that its underlying control becomes almost invisible.
When optimization becomes the organizing principle, even care becomes control.
I don’t think the authors are unaware of this tension — they surface provocative questions about democracy, inequality, and agency. But I’d argue this scenario is more than speculative. It’s a mirror of the very systems we’re already building:
Algorithmic education that personalizes learning while narrowing curiosity — think GPT-4-powered tutors, ClassDojo behavior tracking, or Proctorio’s surveillance-based assessments.
Gated green cities like NEOM or Masdar City, where sustainability is curated but access is limited to elites.
Behaviorist nudges embedded in social credit systems, gamified wellness apps, or AI-driven productivity coaches that reward compliance.
And the rise of AI as social infrastructure — from Replika’s chatbot companions to digital twins managing city governance — turning relational complexity into predictable interaction.
What makes this persona powerful isn’t just its possibility — it’s how close we already are. Perhaps this is exactly what the persona is meant to provoke: a conversation about where care ends and control begins.
From a regenerative perspective, the core question isn’t just:
Can kids participate in future cities?
It’s:
What kind of futures are we building when participation itself is designed by the system?
To be regenerative, a system must remain open to wildness, emergence, dissent, and reciprocal relationships with life — not just simulated nature, but living ecosystems. Not just AI mentors, but human elders. Not just tasks, but curiosity and wonder.
I’m reminded of Marta, the aging protagonist in a recent narrative shared by futurist Frank Diana. In his reflection on the future of aging, Marta navigates a city that has outpaced her — she’s invisible to its design. Like Tervel, she is shaped by the systems around her — but where Tervel is tightly held by design, Marta is left behind by it.
Both live at the edges of optimization: one curated, the other discarded. And both remind us that regeneration is not just about building better systems for people — but about building them alongside the rhythms of life, from childhood to old age.
Tervel deserves more than optimization.
He deserves a world where he can belong, not just comply — where we design our future alongside nature, people, and the deeper rhythms of life—not just for productivity or control.
Explore More of My Work on Regenerative Futures
This reflection builds on my broader work exploring how we respond to systemic stress not with collapse or control—but with coherence. If this piece resonated, you might also find value in:
On Aging and System Redesign: Aging at the Hinge: Why Living Longer Demands System Change
Frank Diana’s Marta Vignette: Invisible at Rush Hour
Full Regenerative Possibility Chain Article Series: Read on Medium