Working definition. Hope is the commitment to possibility under uncertainty. It joins desire to action without confusing either with prediction.
Inherited meaning
Hope has been understood as virtue, consolation, political force, and sometimes dangerous illusion. Its serious forms are distinct from optimism: optimism expects a favourable outcome; hope remains active when the evidence cannot promise one.
Meaning in the imagination economy
AI narratives often alternate between inevitability and catastrophe. Both can remove agency by treating the future as something arriving from outside. Hope refuses inevitability. It makes room for futures that must be authored, negotiated, and maintained before they can become probable.
What changes in practice
Name what is genuinely uncertain, what remains worth protecting, and the next action that would widen possibility. Do not use hope to hide harm; use it to keep responsibility alive when certainty is unavailable.