Near Future Laboratory Newsletter
Get Tomorrow's News Today: speculative headlines, ads, jobs, and signals from one or two plausible near futures.

Date: August 8, 2026

Summary: This edition explores the intersection of technology and spirituality through the rise of GPT Cafés and Psychic Hubs, where practitioners engage with machine intelligences in ritualistic ways. It highlights the emergence of "Deshittification," a field manual aimed at reclaiming the internet from extractive practices, and discusses the challenges posed by autonomous self-dumping dumpsters in urban environments. The issue also features the Tektronix Turing Clamp 6502 MkII, designed to manage LLMs during active inference, and a call for creative technologists to join the Applied Futures Lab. Additionally, it includes a catalog of Experiments in Art and Technology and a classic book recommendation, *Ubik* by Philip K. Dick, emphasizing the blend of art, technology, and speculative design.

Essentially: Engage with technology as a spiritual practice, reclaim the internet, and navigate the complexities of autonomous systems in urban life.

But why? Understanding these emerging practices and technologies is crucial for shaping future interactions with digital systems and fostering a more equitable digital landscape.

Your news from a liminal interstitial between what is today and what is likely to become tomorrow.