Implementing UCI, Leadership Development and Service To Others at Scale.

This article is a journey through three things—because separating them is how we stay stuck. First, I’m going to name the problem: how AI-driven persuasion and “scoreboard living” are training our children, our workers, and our culture toward compliance instead of capability. Second, I’m going to name a solution that existed long before AI went mainstream: Universal Creative Intelligence, a practical, teachable foundation for exceptional self-leadership and leadership with others. Third, I’m going to name the most powerful delivery system we already have to scale it fast and make it culturally real: higher education.

I’m writing this as a parent, because I can’t unsee what’s happening anymore.

What I Saw Before AI, Had a Name

For years, my world was the arts and arts education. I worked in a major children’s museum environment, and I watched what happens when children are given the right conditions: curiosity, play, experimentation, encouragement, room to fail, room to try again. In that kind of space, learning isn’t a performance. It’s a human being becoming more capable.

That’s also where you learn the harder truth. Kids don’t only learn subjects. They learn systems. They learn what gets rewarded, what gets punished, what earns approval, what triggers rejection, and what kind of person it is safest to become. That lens never leaves you. Once you see it, you start noticing what environments are actually training—whether they admit it or not.

And now, as a parent, I’m watching a new environment form around our children. It isn’t neutral. It’s optimized.

The Problem: When AI Stops Being a Tool and Becomes a Trainer

We tend to talk about AI like it’s a gadget. But the most powerful use of AI right now isn’t tutoring. It isn’t discovery. It’s prediction and influence.

Every scroll, pause, click, share, and search becomes data. That data is used to learn what hooks you, what scares you, what comforts you, what angers you, what makes you feel like you belong. Then the system serves more of what keeps you engaged. That’s not a moral accusation. It’s the business model. But when you apply that model to developing minds, it stops being “content.” It becomes conditioning.

This isn’t brand-new. As long as we’ve had mass communication, we’ve had attempts to shape behavior. Social media accelerated it by turning persuasion into a feedback loop: rewarded behaviors repeat, punished behaviors disappear. What’s different now is the precision. The systems don’t just broadcast to crowds; they learn individuals.

And here’s the most sobering part: the first generation raised inside these platforms isn’t “the kids” anymore. Those children grew up. They’re adults now—working, voting, managing, teaching, enforcing, and raising the next generation—while still carrying the conditioning they were trained in.

That is what compliance looks like in the modern world. Not only obedience to a boss. Obedience to a score. Obedience to a feed. Obedience to the invisible pressure to stay acceptable.

The Problem Expands: Schools and Workplaces Become Scoreboards Too

The same logic that trains people online has been creeping into schools and workplaces for years: measure everything, score everything, rank everything. When a system rewards what can be quantified, people learn to chase outputs instead of building real strength.

In school, a student learns to ask, “How many points is this worth?” instead of “What can I learn?” That question sounds harmless until it becomes a worldview. Curiosity becomes conditional. Confidence becomes external. Risk begins to feel dangerous.

Then those students enter workplaces where “leadership” often shrinks into metrics management: hit the numbers, follow the script, don’t create problems. People stop offering better ideas because it slows the machine. They avoid honest feedback because it carries consequences. They learn to protect appearances instead of building healthier systems.

And then AI arrives—not as a teacher, but as an accelerator. It can monitor, rank, flag, nudge, and standardize. It can turn judgment into a score. It can make it easy for institutions to say, “The system decided,” and hide behind the tool.

This is where we have to stop pretending it’s harmless. When large populations are trained to manage rules, manage scores, manage optics, and manage social punishment, you don’t just get “efficiency.” You get a society that is easier to steer. Not because people are weak—because people are exhausted, and the system rewards whoever stays predictable.

The Business Kicker: We’re Teaching Companies to Do This to Compete

And here’s the most disturbing part: we’re training businesses—across the board—to do exactly this.

To compete, companies are taught to capture attention, shape behavior, tighten tracking, and automate persuasion. The playbook is simple: if you can predict people, you can control outcomes. If you can control outcomes, you can beat your competitors. So the same tools that learn what keeps a teenager scrolling are now learning what keeps an employee compliant, what keeps a customer hooked, and what keeps a population easy to manage.

Then we turn around and ask a baffled question: why can’t I find people who want to work, who think, who take initiative, who care about quality, who stay? But we trained a culture to chase scores, protect image, avoid risk, and survive judgment. We trained people to perform for approval, not to build real capability. And now we’re surprised when exhaustion wins.

The Bridge: What Do You Teach a Human Being So They Don’t Become a Product?

That’s why I started building a solution years ago—long before AI went mainstream—because the pattern was already visible. Systems train people whether we admit it or not. If the system rewards performance over judgment, people learn to perform. If it rewards obedience over initiative, people learn to comply. Over time, you end up with a culture full of smart people who still don’t feel steady, capable, or free—because they were trained to survive inside scoreboards instead of trained to lead themselves.

So no—the answer isn’t to “ban everything.” And it isn’t to surrender and call this inevitable. The answer is to rebuild human capability on purpose, at scale, so technology stays in its proper place: a tool, not a trainer.

But here’s the question that changes everything: what do you teach a human being so they don’t become a product? What skills make someone hard to steer through fear, reward loops, social pressure, and constant scoring? What would it look like if we trained those skills as deliberately as we train reading and writing?

The Solution: Universal Creative Intelligence

That question is exactly why Universal Creative Intelligence exists. The playbook has already been written. UCI is a practical leadership foundation that teaches people how to lead themselves and lead with others—consistently, under pressure, over time.

And here’s the kicker. This isn’t a niche method or a culture-bound program. It’s universal. You can teach it across cultures and languages because it’s built on human capabilities, not trends. You can start teaching it in elementary school while habits are forming, and you can train adults at any age because it meets people in real life, not perfect life. It’s foundational—like reading and writing—because it sits underneath everything else: how a person learns, builds, collaborates, stays steady under pressure, and follows through.

When a group shares this foundation, everything changes. People stop waiting for permission. Problems stop being “someone else’s job.” The room becomes capable. And in a capable room, almost anything is possible.

Why Higher Education Is the Launchpad

Now we come to the delivery system. Higher education is the best launchpad—not because universities are perfect, but because they are one of humanity’s most enduring instruments for advancing human capacity, and service to others. 

For millennia, societies have relied on higher learning to preserve knowledge, deepen understanding, develop empathy, and create continuity across generations. Universities and colleges are where a culture decides what is real, what is rigorous, what is worth passing on. They don’t just teach information. At their best, they train leaders to serve others. Because colleges and universities are built on the work of thousands of individuals across the globe, that are in service to others. Because they choose to be. 

That cultural authority is exactly what we need right now. Higher education can do what almost no other system can do at scale: teach a standard, credential it, and make it culturally real. It can take leadership out of the “optional” category and make it a baseline promise for every graduate, in every discipline.

Imagine if a university could say, honestly: if you leave here with a degree, you will also leave with proven tools for self-leadership, collaboration, emotional steadiness, mission focus, and service—tools you can use for life. In an AI-saturated world, that isn’t a luxury. It’s survival.

Universal and Accessible

If this is a foundation for survival-focused leadership, it must be accessible to every adult—free or low-cost—regardless of income, disability, language, background, age, or education history.

Universities can legitimize and launch it. Then it can travel outward through community colleges, libraries, workforce centers, adult education, unions, civic organizations, and online cohorts designed for real lives. This becomes the foundation for opportunity for anyone.

The Ending That Matters: A Future We Can Build

This is not an anti-technology argument. It’s a pro-human argument. AI can assist. But humans must decide. Tools can accelerate. But humans must lead.

We can keep drifting and let the systems refine how to steer us—faster, cheaper, and more precisely. Or we can choose, on purpose, to rebuild a capability society: a society where people are trained to learn, build, collaborate, stay steady, and serve others with intention.

That is what UCI is for. Higher education is the launchpad. The mission is universal. And the best news is this: we don’t have to invent a solution from scratch. We simply have to decide to teach it—before the next generation learns the wrong lessons even more deeply than we have. 

Marty Treinen is an author, artist, arts/museum educator, and co-founder of Creative Core International, where he helped create Universal Creative Intelligence™ (UCI), a framework designed to strengthen creativity, emotional intelligence, and lifelong learning. His background spans fine art, film, theater, and museum education. Marty’s mission is to bring human-centered learning systems to schools, communities, and organizations worldwide.

As a columnist for The Palm Springs Tribune, Marty covers theater, film, visual and performing arts, human-centric AI, and cultural events throughout the Coachella Valley. His reviews are known for their honesty, authenticity, clarity, and deep respect for the power of the arts, to enhance our lives.

service.to.others.cci@gmail.com