Recently I was invited (again, with gratitude) to challenge a new team of Fontys A.I. advanced students. My approach was to ask them for help as AiREAS (local air quality and health) in addressing local citizens for their part of the shared responsibility within air quality and their own health. After all, over 50% over our exposure to the problem is caused by ourselves, according to our research. It can be considered as the very first health benefit to be obtained if we convert our awareness in some changes in our daily habits or comfort zone.

During an entire semester these students team up to, next to attending class, work out their own ideas to tackle the challenge. To my surprise this group choose the psychological path. This was new. In many other occasions the teams decided to use measurement data to produce apps. Not this time. Their approach became to design an A.I. algorithm that would be positively persuasive in our communication. In other words: Our words matter! They started to do research on the engagement with emotions.

Their approach challenged also me as challenger. I myself had introduced various new words into the world in order to develop a common understanding around a particular topic. Take for instance the overarching concept of Sustainocracy, introduced in 2012. It does not appear yet in Wikipedia but many people worldwide already know that it refers to a human centered societal approach. One in which the existential ethics of our sustainable existence is translated into five core values as a shared responsibility between people and institutions alike. It was born out of the general confusion of what we mean by “sustainability”.

Today I came across an online analysis about the color blue. Apparently it only started to exist when the Egyptians created a pigmented powder with that color definition. Before that the color was not recognized as such, or named by people, so it did not formally exist. Have a look at this interesting analysis of “The Why Files” that shows how our words matter. But this Why File video was debunked. The debunking uses the analysis again of semantics, but this time with a contextual historical outline. Our words do matter, and so does our own responsibility to get to an understanding of them. And so does context. Enjoy!