The AI Designed Fictions Research Studio
Plus notes from the latest Near Future Laboratory Newsletter
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Top item is the roll-out of a research program that's been running for a few months that needed a bit more structure around it.
It's the Artificial Intelligence Designed Fictions Research Studio, where the evolving role of AI is investigated through research, functional speculative prototypes and design fiction artifacts.
The focus is on rapid ideation and creating these very tangible prototypes to help organizations and teams envision potential AI-influenced futures.
Because it's sometimes confusing when the words "speculative" or "fiction" is used, let me be perfectly clear: we are focused on actually building things.
Unique to futures design studios, I not only help you with strategic reflections and considerations on technological and socio-technical futures. Near Future Laboratory is a laboratory in the trad sense of the word: I actually build things from the future — that actual work.
This and other functional futures prototypes are a unique proposition that I offer that most other futures design consults do not.
Industry experience and academic credentials in engineering, software development, advanced studies in technology and society, actual real hardware product design — as well as founding, funding, running, and selling a successful hardware business — means I bring a unique and capable perspective to address the challenges of futures design, research, and engineering.
I have no idea how many of you are local, but if you are — we're kicking off a new series of events in collaboration with our friends over at Futurespaces called SideShow on June 12th, 2025 at 6:00 PM at the Proper Hotel in Santa Monica, CA.
One night. A room full of artists, designers, filmmakers, and creative people sharing the work they’re making outside the brief. Sound experiments. Illegible interfaces. Broken narratives. Tools bent into new shapes. Ideas with no client, no deadline, no plan—just the need to try something no one asked for. A rare glimpse into experimental ventures headed straight into unknown territory.
​Sideshow is a space for work that’s personal, unruly, and unfinished—kept alive in spite of economic pressure and the pull of everything more urgent. It’s a chance to share what’s taking shape, spark something new, and help each other keep going. Not by scaling up. Just by showing up. To keep alive the side that keeps us going.
This first edition is anchored by a presentation from Karin Fyhrie (Collins, IDEO), debuting selections from Dream Logic—a collaborative video series tracing their process of wrestling with, shaping, and occasionally surrendering to the possibilities of generative AI in creative work.
Here's a screen shot of the latest prototype in process in the AI+DF Research Studio as we investigate futures of writing.
This largely came out of discussions around a project that touched on the future of education — specifically design education — but in that mix we wondered what it would be like to write in an AI future.
You could talk about that topic all day, I would think. Maybe even longer.
We're in the Less Yammering, More Hammering mode with the Research Studio.
So we built a thing to begin to wander into one of those possible futures. (Which raises ontological quandries: is making a thing to experiment with a future futuring, or is it already inhabiting a future right at the vanguard?)
https://nearfuturelaboratory.com/blog/2025/06/ghostwriter-tui-streaming-test/
More in the newsletter. There's always more in the blog. And there's always way, way more in the Discord.
_Julian