FuturePanama: A Witness to a Technological Turning Point

A creative experiment developed at the dawn of generative AI (2023–2024)

1. Introduction: Designing the future from the edge of change

Launched in May 2024, FuturePanama was the result of over a year of collaboration between NextPanam, the foresight lab METLABLATAM, and Albus Studio. The project was born at a key moment: when generative artificial intelligence moved from speculation to reality, and became an accessible tool for artists, designers, and technologists.

The mission was twofold: to imagine possible futures for Panama, and to document—through images, sound, and words—the transitional moment when creativity started to be shared between humans and machines.

2. The context: Generative AI, Year Zero

During 2023, new AI tools emerged into the mainstream. Platforms like GPT-4, Midjourney, Runway, and ElevenLabsbecame accessible for creatives willing to experiment with these still-immature technologies. Instead of waiting for perfect results, the FuturePanama team chose to work with the tools as they were, embracing their limitations as part of the aesthetic.

Key milestones from that era:

• GPT-4: Released by OpenAI on March 14, 2023. A multimodal language model with strong contextual understanding.
  Wikipedia – GPT-4

• Midjourney v5: Released on March 15, 2023, offering improved realism and prompt interpretation.
  AITuts – Midjourney Versions

• DALL·E 3: Launched in September 2023 with better accuracy and natural language understanding.
  Encord Blog

• Runway Gen-2: Introduced in June 2023, enabling text-to-video generation.
  80 Level – Gen-2

• ElevenLabs: Entered public beta in early 2023, delivering expressive AI voice synthesis.
  ElevenLabs News

These tools were far from perfect. Many outputs showed “hallucinations”—a term used to describe AI-generated content that looks coherent at first glance but contains serious distortions or inaccuracies. In image generation, this meant hands with too many fingers, unnatural facial structures, or visual glitches. It often took dozens of iterations per image to achieve something usable.

Parallel to this, Adobe Photoshop began integrating AI into its Creative Cloud tools, allowing creatives to expand AI-generated images or add new content using prompt-based instructions. This marked a significant shift: AI became part of everyday design workflows.
Adobe Firefly & Generative Fill – Official Release

3. The role of NextPanam: An institutional platform for creative risk

NextPanam was more than a partner. It provided the conditions that made this project possible—offering the institutional support to explore without predefined outcomes. Their mission to connect public discourse, civic imagination, and innovation laid the groundwork for FuturePanama to unfold as both a research project and a public-facing experiment.

4. A system of four interconnected experiences

A. FuturePanama (Virtual Exhibition)
Hosted in Spatial.io, this digital gallery presented four NFT collections that visualized speculative futures for Panama—focused on climate, migration, infrastructure, and urban development.

B. NFT Gallery
Each NFT was generated using early-stage AI visual models, accompanied by texts co-written with GPT-4. Rather than collectibles, these images served as visual artifacts of reflection and foresight.

C. ParkingLand
A conceptual digital nightclub designed for younger audiences, symbolizing future hybrid identities and online social behavior.

D. METLABLATAM
A foresight lab that researched global megatrends and interpreted them through a Latin American lens. The lab’s findings shaped the themes and scenarios featured across the entire project.

5. A first-wave aesthetic: imperfect, revealing, necessary

The images produced in 2023 and early 2024 show clear signs of their time. They don’t hide their artificiality or errors—instead, they embrace it. Many contain visual distortions, asymmetries, or surreal qualities that were characteristic of early generative tools.

What we see in these images is not a finished product, but a trace of the struggle to create in a new language. These imperfections are part of the historical record.

6. Final note: Creativity is always in transition

The history of creativity is also the history of tools. From charcoal to code, each new medium transforms how we think, design, and express ideas.

FuturePanama wasn’t built to resolve the human–AI relationship. It was built to live inside it, explore it, and reflect on it—without panic or perfectionism.

Creatives today are not called to defend their past. We are called to interpret the future. These tools—text generators, image models, voice engines—are not threats. They are amplifiers. They can stretch the boundaries of what we imagine and how we build.

And in the end, even as machines learn to generate, only humans still know how to mean—with memory, doubt, contradiction, and feeling.