Near Future Laboratory Newsletter

Date: June 10, 2026

Summary: The latest insights explore the intersection of logistics, automation, and AI in shaping the future of work. It examines the role of human supervision in algorithm-driven tasks and the evolving legal landscape surrounding personal intelligence devices, highlighting their potential as witnesses in legal contexts. Speculative prototyping is emphasized as a method to understand the social implications of these technologies. Innovations like Scape's neurotinctures and the concept of "delivery stewards" are introduced, showcasing new job roles emerging from AI and automation. The newsletter also discusses the implications of AI stand-ins in corporate environments and features the KitchenAI CoffeeMate™ 6502, an advanced espresso machine that personalizes coffee brewing. Additionally, it promotes design fiction books and anticipatory research initiatives aimed at exploring future possibilities.

Essentially: Speculative prototyping and innovative technologies are reshaping work and societal interactions, emphasizing the need for human oversight in AI-driven processes.

But why? Understanding the implications of emerging technologies and speculative design can help organizations navigate the complexities of future work environments and societal changes.

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06:00 Coordinated Coastal California Time

From the Editor

Good morning. Here is the latest news from one of your many possible plausible near futures.

Logistics and automation have been intertwined in ways that have shaped work and labor for centuries. When we think about the future of work in the age of AI, we often imagine a world where the work is just done by an algorithm. But what if instead, the work is done by an algorithm but supervised by a human?

And the legal and regulatory landscape that surrounds personal intelligence devices has been evolving rapidly, and in some cases, unpredictably. Now our always-listening “Friends” are not just companions, but also potential witnesses in legal cases.

Speculative prototyping of these possible near futures helps us notice the social “shape” of these technologies and the way they shape the worlds we inhabit in a way that plain research “implications” cannot. The speculative prototyping augments the research and signals, and the research and signals ground the speculative prototyping. Together they help us see more clearly.

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Tomorrow's News Today

Jobs in the Age of AI

Delivery Stewards Reduce Chaos of Autonomous Delivery

California's AI & Automation Workforce Response labor rules have created a new kind of job: “delivery stewards”. The task? Accompany autonomously delivered cargo through the awkward, chaotic and exposed last fifty feet.

Do you want to know more?

A delivery steward walking near an autonomous delivery vehicle at the curb.

Listening Witness

“Friend” testimony concludes

A wearable companion mistook a heist movie for a confession. Now a court is deciding whether an always-listening intelligence can be a loyal friend and a witness for the state.

Do you want to know more?

Courtroom sketch of an AI-enabled pendant testifying against its owner.

Books for the Beach

All the design fiction that's fit to read. Get all of the books at a special summer discount.

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The Four Design Fiction Books

Big Books Big Pre-Summer Sale. Available now, the full collection of Design Fiction books. Get the whole set and save. Four books for $49.99. Crazy, right?

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Tomorrow's Jobs Today

Apple

Senior VP, Divergence Research Systems

Divergence Research Systems is a new executive unit inside Apple created to expand the terrain and approach of innovation and inquiry. The group is designed to support cognitive range, unconventional research methods, non-linear prototyping, and exploratory making practices that do not fit neatly inside the trad shape of conventional research, product, or innovation templates.

Do you want to know more?

Anticipatory & Prophetic Policy Lab

Director of Prophetic Research & Scenario Lab

The Anticipatory & Prophetic Policy Lab is committed to exploring the implications of emerging technologies and societal shifts through speculative prototyping, policy prototyping, anticipatory research and expeditionary research methods. The Director of the Prophetic Research Scenario Lab will build and lead a studio and team of practitioners with inter- and multi-disciplinary skillsets and experiences in order to craft detailed, experiential, and transitional futures that help our clients inform their strategic decision-making and policy development.

Do you want to know more?

It's Not All Bad News

Observed Signal

Sorry, I'm OoO. Talk to the AI ME

AI stand-ins are answering when the human is unavailable — the signal that was amplified by our Meta Renames Itself “Mark” fiction: speculation and the world, richly and complexly plaited as product logic, executive mythology, and the strange new etiquette of synthetic presence.

Do you want to know more?

New York Times article image for a story about AI digital twins standing in for unavailable people.

Speculative Fiction

Meta Renames Itself “Mark”

This dispatch from a couple weeks back imagines the world the NYT piece now reports: AI stand-ins for a CEO who wants to be across everything, everywhere, all at once.
That is the value of speculative prototyping. It gives us a place where we can enter a possible-plausible tiny corner of a future world, and walk around a bit before the roads are paved and the concrete is poured. That's invaluable.

KitchenAI CoffeeMate™ 6502

Orchestrate your morning brew with the KitchenAI CoffeeMate™ 6502, the latest in AI-powered espresso machines. With its intuitive interface and customizable settings, you can program your perfect cup of coffee to be ready when you will likely wake up. Say goodbye to waiting in line at the café. Say buenos días to agentic-quality coffee at home.

KITCHENAI COFFEEMATE™ 6502

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Speculative prototyping of our possible near futures brought to you by Near Future Laboratory™.

These explorations are intended to help teams and organization wander into the expansive terrains they are exploring. Organizations get really good at reproducing the world they already understand. Near Future Laboratory helps teams surface their unspoken inherited assumptions and explore alternative possibilities through artifacts from possible futures. If you’re looking to get out of that loop, let’s talk.

Tomorrow’s News Today is part of The Adjacency, a Speculative Prototyping & Design Fiction Research Initiative by Near Future Laboratory.
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