Why should it take more than a second to be kind?
Why should it take more than a second to be kind?
Sorry for another skipped newsletter, but for the last few months I have been working away on a new project. Well, a newish project, as it's a slight continuation of two past projects. A cocktail of Ventually's design fiction for debate in public spaces and Dear MP's examinations of time, effort, and value in the age of generative consumer AI. I have tried to take learnings from both projects and create a more focused and explicit design fiction artefact. Much like Dear Mp, I am sure some will see the future I'm presenting as fine, even preferable. Others, I hope, will see a future they are appalled by and want no part in. I hope either reaction will spark some internal and/or external debates in the audience. However, recently I am realising to a much greater extent that my work is not some rational thing separate from me, it is an embodiment of my own personal experiences, fears and hopes. I know I can't convince everyone, and I am in no way a moral arbiter of the future. I'm just a boy standing in front of the world, shouting at the top of my lungs, 'I don't want this future!'.
So without further ado, here is Dear Ai, an experiential piece of design fiction exploring how the proliferation of AI tools will affect traditional notions of value, effort, and meaning in personal communication and indeed, relationships. The improvement of AI technology in recent years has let us peek into a future where not only business can become more efficient, but so too can we humans. Just as AI powered coding tools, like Co-Pilot, can give us the power to become 10x programmers, other AI tools will surface inviting us to become 10x friends, family, and lovers.
Dear Ai is one such tool. Presented in the past of a future that has made these tools mainstream, it gives its customers the ability to automate their personal correspondence using generative AI. Whether that be sending a Thank You letter to Granny, a Birthday card to Dad, a Sympathy letter to your bereaved friend or a Love letter to your wife on your 20th wedding anniversary, Dear Ai has you covered with a suite of features. Dial in the tone of your letters by fine-tuning how sad that sympathy letter should be or how thankful you feel for that present. Send handwritten cards that use AI to copy your handwriting, so no one will know you didn't write it yourself. Or give Dear Ai access to your calendar and social media, so it can autopilot your correspondence, sending letters before you even remember its so-and-so's birthday.
The site is a mix of real features that you can experience now and speculative ones from the near future I believe we may be heading towards. I hope it invites you to ask questions such as: How will it feel to send and receive synthetically intimate letters to/from loved ones? Are traditional values of politeness already devoid of meaning? What does it say when stop using AI to check our writing and instead become editors of Ai writing? Should a VC funded company mediate our affection or our conflict? Do you want your human connections to be messy, inefficient and visceral or aesthetically pleasing, effortless and clinical? Is 'I miss you' scrawled on the back of a postcard worth 5000 words of AI love?
Check it out here, give it a try and please share your thoughts with me.
That's all for this month, I hope next month I will be back to tell you how the public release goes. Till then, have a great end to the week and a big thank you to everyone who helped me with this project, your thoughts, and feedback were invaluable, even if I ignored them...
Fred
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My Website: https://www.fredwordie.com