Original text in French by Anne Nguyen — Translated and adapted for the 2025 Summer School on Management of Creativity, HEC Mosaic – University of Barcelona.

Welcome to 2051.

Doubt is the engine of the world.

…Are you wondering if I’m saying it's not courage? Not curiosity? Not candor? Yes, it is all of that too. But doubt—doubt is still where the magic lives.

Doubt has driven the world forward because it pushed us to question, to explore, to search beyond what we thought we knew.

It is what allowed philosophers to redefine truth, scientists to challenge established dogmas, inventors to imagine alternative solutions. Artists? They draw from it endlessly to create the unexpected, to push the boundaries of expression, to resist slipping into the déjà-vu—or worse, into someone else’s voice.

Every revolution—scientific, technological, or social—was born from a challenge, a refusal of the status quo, a fundamental doubt that opened the way for progress.

René Descartes said: To reach the truth, once in life we must rid ourselves of all the opinions we have received and rebuild from the foundation of our knowledge.

Socrates reminded us: The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

Voltaire stated: Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

Ernest Renan: Doubt is a tribute we pay to truth.

Marie Curie: Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.

Einstein: The greater the doubt, the greater the awakening.

My father experienced his greatest moment of doubt upon arriving in Montreal. Yes—greater even than when he left Vietnam on a boat with 19 people… and only 9 reached the shore.

That doubt? He felt it in front of this so-called promised land, the dream of a new life with dignity. But the reality? His first job? He didn’t speak the language. He didn’t even know how to ask for work.

So, every morning, he showed up at the Hilton Hotel, waiting for a door to open. A week later, a manager, out of patience, finally said:

"Since you're here, take this bucket of water and clean whatever you want—as long as you don’t disturb the guests."

And so he began, cleaning stair railings… eventually landing in the kitchen.

As I grew up, he asked me three questions every day:

● Did you eat well today?

● Were you kind?

● Are you happy?

Three simple questions. Three yeses? Keep going. If not, adjust your life.

But the moment he sensed doubt... he wouldn’t let me stay in paralysis.“Doubt,” he’d say, “is your instinct speaking. Use it to move forward.”

As a society, we grew up with doubt. It's always been there, lurking at the edge between prudence and fear, analysis and paralysis. But we were taught to be wary of it, to silence it:

“Stop asking so many questions!”

“Why do you hesitate so much? Just trust!”

“Be more confident!”

“If you’re doubting, it means you don’t really believe in what you’re doing.”

Doubt has often been treated like a flaw:

A lack of faith.

A lack of conviction.

A crippling hesitation.

Then, one day, we arrived in 2025…

A world where people had to be reminded to doubt.

We feared for DEI—diversity, equity, inclusion.

We believed that AI, with its sophisticated algorithms, could help us build a fairer world. But instead, we saw biases deepen, doors close, voices disappear.

The same systems that, in a 1990s kitchen, made space for society’s outcasts, seemed to vanish behind models that, unintentionally, were normalizing exclusion.

If you wanted to see what inclusion really looked like, you just had to walk through the back door of a restaurant in 1990.

In a kitchen like the one where my father cooked.There, you’d find lesbians, refugees, former inmates, people from marginalized communities, neurodivergent individuals. Together.

They didn’t speak the same language. They didn’t always share values or beliefs. But they were there, because it was one of the rare places that opened its door and said: “Come in.”

Together, they cooked.

In 2025, we realized that technology alone would never do the work for us.

We thought AI would give us perfect, instant answers. No errors. Finally, we could outsource critical thinking to algorithms.

But very quickly, we saw we were trading our judgment for the illusion of absolute truth.

“…Maybe we should’ve just outsourced the repetitive tasks after all.”

Because of that, we had to give words like “hallucination” new arms and legs.

Once, a hallucination was a psychological phenomenon—a misperception of reality. But with the rise of AI, the term evolved.

Now, an AI that fabricates facts, distorts the truth, or generates false content is also said to “hallucinate.” That shift in meaning says a lot: we began to accept that machines could be wrong—but it took us longer to remember to question their answers.

In 2025…

We had to reintroduce critical judgment classes.

In schools, we began teaching not just how to use AI, but how to question it. Students were encouraged not to accept an answer just because it came from an advanced model. They were reminded that a good researcher, a good journalist, a good artist never stops at the first draft.

In companies, we rediscovered the role of doubt in decision-making. The era of copy-pasting unreviewed AI suggestions gave way to a more thoughtful approach:Who trained this model?With what data?What biases are embedded?

In media, blind trust in generative AI led to spectacular failures: fake images spread as real, fabricated quotes wrongly attributed to public figures, biased analysis presented as fact. The disillusionment was harsh.

And that’s when something important happened.

The tools hadn’t changed.But we had.We realized the problem wasn’t AI. It was how we used it.

Dance has always been a part of my life.

One day, my math teacher—a serious woman, full of conviction—came to see me perform. It was one of those shows where you’re so immersed in dancing, everything else disappears.

After the show, she came up to me, looked me in the eye and said: “You should go into dance, not mathematics.”

I wasn’t sure how to take it: Was I just terrible at math, and this was her gentle way of telling me? Or had she seen some hidden potential I didn’t yet see in myself?

In another life, I might have chosen dance. But science chose me…

Still, in 2025, dance became my mental anchor in my work on AI.

Why dance? Because it embodies the intelligence of the body—the balance between technique and intuition, between control and surrender.

Now imagine this: If AI were a dance partner, how would it move with us? Would it be a graceful companion, attentive to our movements, adapting fluidly to our rhythm?Or a rigid force, imposing its own tempo, guiding us without truly listening?

In 2025, where are we in this dance with AI? Have we found our balance? Or are we still wavering—between trying to control it and letting it take the lead?

Too often, AI has been intrusive, setting a rhythm out of sync with our needs and our reality.

But the real question is: Why the disconnect?

Is AI poorly designed? Or are we simply unprepared to guide it well?

Over time, we realized that innovation isn’t just about the power of the models or their speed.

True progress lies in their ability to adapt to our human pace—to enrich our movement without taking over.

Because trust can’t be declared. It must be built. It comes from our ability to assess AI, to question it, to make room for it in our lives—without ever handing over the choreography.

So—can AI truly be a dance partner? Or must it always follow our lead?

And most importantly, in this dance… who really leads?

Trust AI? No.Trust our ability to use it wisely? Yes.

That moment marked a turning point.

In 2025, doubt was no longer seen as a weakness.It returned to its rightful place: as a powerful tool, a compass to help us move forward—without getting blinded.

And that’s how we avoided the fall.

The fall into déjà-vu. Into what belongs to someone else. Into what seemed too good to be true.

Welcome to 2051.