Near Future Laboratory Newsletter

Date: July 1, 2025

Summary: In this edition of the Near Future Laboratory newsletter, I reflect on my trial experience with the Limitless AI Pendant—a wearable device that records daily conversations and offers algorithmically generated summaries. My skepticism kicks in when its suggestions reveal a productivity-obsessed worldview, missing the point of open-ended ideation sessions and even mistaking movie dialogue for real-life actions (congratulations to me on the Catalina Wine Mixer, apparently). This leads to musings on the weird, absurd implications of future AI assistants gone rogue, a fertile ground for Design Fiction. Beyond the essay, I announce free US shipping on items from the shop and open access to Office Hours, inviting folks to join weekly sessions where side projects are shared. I highlight a surreal NYT piece on how AI is being marketed to infantilized consumers, spotlight a quirky new blog about "low background steel" media untainted by AI-generated content, and recommend the Science, Technology & Social Values newsletter for deep dives into AI governance. The Dispatch also includes a promotion for the fictional Fluke Torque 8080 Turing Clamp—pure design fiction confectionery.

Essentially: I tried an AI wearable, it misunderstood me completely, and that misalignment sent me spiraling into musings about speculative tech hijinks and the absurdity of AI’s future role in our lives.

But why? This dispatch spotlights the misfit between generalized AI systems and the complexity of human nuance, creativity, and absurdity. It emphasizes the importance of design fiction as a lens for interrogating the cultural assumptions embedded in emerging technologies. For those working in futures thinking, design strategy, or innovation, this reflection offers a vivid cautionary tale: AI doesn’t just automate—it reinterprets, often comically or catastrophically. That reinterpretation is where both danger and opportunity live.

A few months ago I did a trial of the Limitless AI Pendant wearable/listening device.

It’s a wearable that listens to you, your conversations, and interactions as you go about your day.

Every morning it then it provides a kind of summary of your previous day. You know — the main themes, topics, action items or whatever based on some AI-based algorithmic ingestion of all the things it has heard.

It’s a bit like the listening personal assistants that people have join them on Zoom calls and the like. (I guess?)

So I’m trying this thing and I’m pondering these morning summaries the thing is giving me. And I’m really sensing that the algorithm is ‘tuned’ for a particular sort of person who wants a tight organization on their day and behaviors.

It’s tuned for structure and performance or something like that.

(Is this Limitless like the Bradley Cooper film?)

There was this one day’s summary in which I had this couple hours long brainstorm/ideation session. Limitless is telling me that it might benefit me to be more organized in discussions and not wander too much as to the topic.

Um. So — no.

That’s completely wrong.

In that context, the purpose was specifically to wander and find our way through an open-ended discussion where we did not know where we were going. And we were happy for that wandering around an unfamiliar terrain — a terrain for which there were lots of possible paths.

In another instance, I had inadvertently left the Limitless AI device on, and it was sitting near the living room where I was watching the screwball comedy Step Brothers because my nephews were all, like..“Unc. You gotta watch Step Brothers..I can’t believe you haven’t seen Step ”

So I watched it.

And the next morning the Limitless AI device’s little daily summary was berating me for talking so aggressively towards my parents, and it congratulated me on a successful event at the Catalina Wine Mixer.

“Congratulations on your success with the Catalina Wine Mixer.”

And of course, me being me — I started imagining all of the ways that these kinds of agentic doo-dads are going to make a mess of people’s lives. Lots of Design Fiction possibilities there for the next issue of ‘Tomorrow’s News Today’, yeah? What kind of hijinks would such a thing get into rummaging around in your emails or its ‘seamless integration’ with your local home security bureau when it overhears you watching John Wick.

P.S. If you haven’t seen Step Brothers, my nephews think you could do a lot worse for a screwball comedy. And that Catalina Wine Mixer? It’s become a real thing. Fiction found its way into our reality, as per normal.

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Office Hours Side Projects Edition ➜

Every week for the past 266 weeks we've had Office Hours.
A few episodes back we started sharing our Side Projects. Just a short share of some little thing. And then there was a discussion about that, feedback, suggestions, links, introductions.
Join us! With the support of the Legendary Patreon Supports, Office Hours is now open to everyone!
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(p.s. Back issues are flowing up to the YouTube channel as quickly as I can manage!)

Design Fiction Dispatches
Emanations from Possible Near Futures

Why Does Every Commercial for A.I. Think You're a Moron? ➜

(⁠🛠-whats-ai-good-for-anyway⁠) via @Sandro Pasquali

Ads for consumer A.I. are struggling to imagine how the product could improve your day — unless you're a barely functioning idiot. This commercial's "Looney Tunes" vibe is not a bug: This is how Silicon Valley has tried to sell artificial intelligence to consumers, at least on television. In commercial after commercial, humans are oblivious, enfeebled, barely functioning idiots beset by more tasks, stimuli and demands on their time than anyone could reasonably handle.

Low Background Steel For AI ➜

(⁠🚦signals-and-inspirations⁠) via @Julian

Curious idea to have a blog about 'uncontaminated content' — that is, content that hasn't been slopped onto the internet.
"The idea is to point to sources of text, images and video that were created prior to the explosion of AI-generate content that occurred in 2022"
The name? Comes from steel and lead that is/was uncontaminated by radioactive isotopes from nuclear testing. This kind of metal is usually recovered from ships that sunk before the Trinity Test in 1945.
Crazy.
I guess then we're talking about tapes, photographs, films, books and print outs in some archive somewhere that can verify have always been there?

The Science Technology & Social Values Newsletter ➜

(⁠📝-general⁠) via @Julian

A prodigous amount of work and engagement and activity from Alondra Nelson's lab at the Institute for Advanced Study! Plenty of reports and deep-dive articles on AI governance.
Subscribe!

Design Fiction Dispatches
Emanations from Possible Near Futures

Fluke Torque 8080 Turing Clamp

All Fluke Brand Turing Clamps 20% Off! Happy Turing Day!

Using a Fluke Turing Clamp to suppress your agentics for service, or master assertion reconjugation is a bit like when you get the little shot of a twilight anesthesia before getting something pulled, probed, or retrofitted.