These are the last five weeknotes:

• Companion Paradox: agency in the age of relatable AI
• Humanity in the Age of AI Co-Performance
• Paradox of ambient intelligence: between certainty and shadows
• A void AI might make tangible
• Articulated frictions for engaged presence

As always, let me introduce myself to new readers. This newsletter is my personal weekly digest of the news from last week, of course, through the lens of topics that I think are worth capturing and reflecting upon: human-AI collaborations, physical AI (things and beyond), and tech and society. I always take one topic to reflect on a bit more, allowing the triggered thoughts to emerge. And I share what I noticed as potentially worthwhile things to do in the coming week.

If you’d like to know more about me, I added a bit more of my background at the end of the newsletter.

Enjoy! Iskander

What did happen last week?

To follow up on the rebranding of the newsletter. Last week I did some thinking about this. It is always less easy to take this introspective by yourself, so I am happy to join a small group of three to validate our own progress, and beyond. Also had discussions before with others.

It used to be a tradition to enter proposals for the SXSW panelpicker. One time it was successful back in 2016 already. I did had the deadlines sharp this year and I am in general in doubt how relevant SXSW is nowadays. But when I was reminded by Sam and asked if I did enter a proposal it started brewing. Some of the topics I am thinking about come together, from the design for collectivity and immersive AI in our physical lifeworld, and the relation to the cult of immediacy, what I boiled into the triad of immersion, see this short post at Cities of Things.

So I took the weekend to linger and flesh out a short proposal, titled “Crafting Collective Protocols for Immersive AI Worlds”.

What did I notice last week?

Scroll down for all the notions from the last week’s news, divided into human-AI partnerships, robotic performances, immersive connectedness, and tech societies. Let me choose one per category here:

Human-AI partnerships: An interesting exploration of writing and reading in the age of AI. Writing as a fun experience can keep us trained.

Robotic performances: Self-recycling robots.

Immersive connectedness: You can expect (hope) the Apple Watch with Apple Intelligence to be the poster child for embedded and ambient AI.

Tech societies: Is GPT-5 around the corner? And will it be safe for the world?

What triggered my thoughts?

Two seemingly unrelated concepts captured my attention this week – one from a podcast asking whether AI can teach critical thinking, the other from another podcast discussing “ambient agents.” As I reflected on both, connections emerged.

Can AI truly model critical thinking when it’s designed to provide answers rather than embrace uncertainty? In the core, they calculate probabilities for next tokens but present outputs with authority. Which, of course, is also the only conclusion the AI can draw unless it is challenged by its user. For critical thinking you need to be aware of possible flaws in your reasoning, or in other words embrace the value of uncertainty, not in the core of AI.

The question isn’t whether AI systems should pretend to be humble (“I’m not sure about that…”), but whether they can embody genuine uncertainty. A large language model doesn’t “know” things – it predicts likely text continuations based on training data. When it confidently states something incorrect, is this a failure of humility or simply the system working as designed?

Perhaps what we need isn’t AI that mimics human uncertainty but interfaces that honestly communicate probabilistic thinking. We need a new language for expressing degrees of certainty that users can interpret and evaluate. The challenge isn’t programming humility but designing for transparency.

This brings me to the second thought that was triggered – the concept of “ambient agents” running continuously in the background of our lives. These aren’t systems we explicitly query but ones that observe, learn, and occasionally intervene based on accumulated patterns.

This reminded me of work I explored a decade ago around Google Glass and early smartwatches, what I called “trigger-based interactions” (a slidedeck from back then) .” Back then, I argued that notifications would create an entirely new interface layer responsive to contextual cues rather than explicit commands.

What’s fascinating about today’s ambient agents is how they extend beyond simple contextual triggers. They don’t just respond to immediate stimuli but collect patterns over time, drawing conclusions from the archaeology of our behavior. It’s not action-reaction but a form of continuous presence.

These two concepts – AI’s relationship with uncertainty and ambient intelligence – intersect in interesting ways. An agent that’s always watching needs mechanisms for communicating confidence levels even more than a chatbot. When AI shifts from answering our questions to anticipating our needs, the stakes of overconfidence multiply.

Our culture of immediacy complicates this further. We’ve trained ourselves on instant gratification, on notifications demanding attention. Yet ambient AI offers a different possibility: technology that accumulates understanding patiently over time, presenting insights with appropriate tentativeness.

The most important design challenge may be creating systems that can whisper doubts as clearly as they proclaim answers – ambient agents that know when not to act, that can communicate uncertainty without disappearing into uselessness.

As AI increasingly becomes environmental rather than tool-like, these questions transform from theoretical to practical. How do we design intelligence that lives in the shadows of our attention while maintaining the critical stance necessary for genuine thinking? The answer may determine whether ambient AI becomes a thoughtful companion or just another source of unwarranted certainty in lives already overflowing with false confidence.

What inspiring paper to share?

More about agent-based models in this paper: Diffractive Interfaces: Facilitating Agential Cuts in Forest Data Across More-than-human Scales

As cities worldwide adopt data-driven approaches to optimize urban forests, computational tools like agent-based models (ABMs) are increasingly popular to simulate forest growth and inform planting decisions. However, ABMs often focus on individual metrics, neglecting forests as interdependent ecosystems.

Drawing on feminist theorist Karen Barad’s concepts of “diffraction” and “agential cuts,” we craft a repertoire of diffractive interfaces that engage with forest simulation data, revealing how more-than-human bodies can be encountered across diverse temporal, spatial, and agential scales.

Elisa Giaccardi, Seowoo Nam, and Iohanna Nicenboim. 2025. Diffractive Interfaces: Facilitating Agential Cuts in Forest Data Across More-than-human Scales. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 135–147. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715336.3735404

What are the plans for the coming week?

As I mentioned above, this is the last Target New-named newsletter. Nothing is changing, but it is. For me, I need to dive into some WordPress and Ghost instances to determine the best merging strategies. I’ll see how that turns out…

I am looking forward to having more inspiring chats and planning for ThingsCon. More proposal writing is on the roll, and I am expecting to go to https://riseoftherainbow.nl/

Furthermore, I was not aware of any specific events. Don’t forgot to celebrate the pride.

The location for the ThingsCon Salon of 4 September is confirmed (in Scheveningen).

See you next week!

References with the notions

Check all the links from this week here.

First of all. Let me introduce myself to fresh readers. This newsletter is my personal weekly digest of the news from last week, of course through the lens of topics that I think are worth capturing and reflecting upon: human-AI collaborations, physical AI (things and beyond), and tech and society. I always take one topic to reflect on a bit more, allowing the triggered thoughts to emerge. And I share what I noticed as potentially worthwhile things to do in the coming week.

If you’d like to know more about me, I added a bit more of my background at the end of the newsletter.

Enjoy! Iskander

What did happen last week?

Next to the running projects (CoT, CPE), and developing further on possible tools for responsible human-AI colabs, a significant part of the week was taken in preparing a short speculative design workshop that was themed about the impact of agentic AI on the addiction to immediacy. I updated my slidedeck that I use to kickstart (or provoke) the participants in the workshop, with the introduction of a triad of immersion (cult of immediacy+agentic AI+physical environment -> super stimuli effect), see also the triggered thought of this week.

We also fleshed out the theme for TH/NGS 2025: Resize, Remix, Regen

TH/NGS 2025 explores makers’ evolving relationship with digital intelligence as material rather than tool. Algorithms and AI are now embraced for their unique textures and potentials, creating a state of flow where makers intuitively “vibe” with these materials. This approach transforms invisible intelligence into tangible creations that serve both individual needs and broader communities. By vibing and remixing, we’re able to materialize intelligence in ways that are intuitive, playful, and responsible.

And we opened the RSVP for the Salon in September.

What did I notice last week?

Scroll down for all the notions from last week’s news, divided into human-AI partnerships, robotic performances, immersive connectedness, and tech societies. Let me choose one per category here:

“Using a Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) framework helps AI learn and adapt like humans by reasoning about what they know, want, and plan to do.” O’Reilly.

Tools for teaching robots skills and tasks. The Robot Report.

CarPlay Ultra installed showing how the car will just be the bearer of a detachable software layer. Ars Technica.

Can we already predict the impact of AI on the economy, or do we need more data to confirm it? Noah Opinion

What triggered my thoughts?

Is AI only capturing what is real, what can be found in the data? Or is AI specifically adding opportunities to capture the in-between space of what is not said, not expressed, and captured in data? This came to mind, combining a story and seeing a movie. It linked to some thinking on what the enforcing power for immersion is as you combine the culture of immediacy, agentic AI, and AI as part of our physical environment.

In a touching story, Eryk Salvaggio is sharing observations after the sudden death of his father. How does AI relate to the real world, especially as it could not be based on data?

Culturally, there seems to be a slowly eroding belief in our culture about the separation of the simulated and the real world. More people assert that the core distinction between the experienced world and its reproduction is simply a matter of producing enough data or density of detail.

Another thought from Eryk reinforces this challenge:

People use AI for grieving loved ones, but a statistically likely reproduction of my father’s words would offer me absolutely no comfort. My father did not express himself through words. He expressed his love through what was not said: by keeping information about the pain of the world close to him.

I recently watched a film called Real Pain. What struck me most was how the strongest elements were the stories not explicitly told but deeply felt. It’s like architecture; a great building creates experiences not just through visible materials and forms, but through the perfectly calibrated spaces in between. What’s unsaid often carries more meaning than what’s articulated.

Last week, I developed some thoughts about the impact of Agentic AI on the addiction of immediacy, prompted by a question that shaped a speculative design workshop. I added a third element to it, that of the physical AI, or immersive AI, as I have framed it in the RIOT 25 publication (Ubiquitous immersive relations with generative things). Combining these three forces—the culture of immediacy, agentic AI, and the physical environment—might create super stimuli effects, fueling a cycle of dependency through hyper-personalized media, dopamine responses, and continuous environmental triggers.

It might be a stretch, but I think this model of immersion can be related to the notion that a data-void can still be part of the total of reality. Is the immersion tangible?

While I was thinking about the presentation on immediacy and immersion last week, the notion of predictive relations thinking came back, the research I started some years ago, and where I tried to model out what these weird shifting realities of using things could turn out to be as we mix in predictive knowledge. AI can very well create, potentially, that inverted space, fill in, or better, add on to the total experience, both tangible and untangible. Back then, I was wondering how this plays into the mental model of the working of things, the relation we have while operating things. AI making the void tangible. As I concluded back then, we need a new form of (understanding) design…

Find the story of Eryk Salvaggio here: https://mail.cyberneticforests.com/my-fathers-data/?ref=cybernetic-forests-newsletter

Find my explorations in designing for predictive relations in this short essay.

What inspiring paper to share?

This paper analyses the LLM way of reasoning and the impact. Chain-of-Thought Is Not Explainability

While this technique often boosts task performance and offers an impression of transparency into the model’s reasoning, we argue that rationales generated by current CoT techniques can be misleading and are neither necessary nor sufficient for trustworthy interpretability.

We show that verbalised chains are frequently unfaithful, diverging from the true hidden computations that drive a model’s predictions, and giving an incorrect picture of how models arrive at conclusions. Despite this, CoT is increasingly relied upon in high-stakes domains such as medicine, law, and autonomous systems—our analysis of 1,000 recent CoT-centric papers finds that~ 25% explicitly treat CoT as an interpretability technique—and among them, papers in high-stakes domains specifically hinge on such interpretability claim heavily

Barez, F., Wu, T. Y., Arcuschin, I., Lan, M., Wang, V., Siegel, N., … & Bengio, Y. (2025). Chain-of-Thought Is Not Explainability. Preprint, alphaXiv, v2.

What are the plans for the coming week?

Enjoying the summer quietness. There is an online session of the Summer of Protocols that may be worth watching. And I might drop by the new “Innovation Museum of the City of Amsterdam” at Marineterrein. And when in London, an IxDA meetup on prototyping.

Enjoy your week!

References with the notions

Check the full newsletter to find all references to the captured notions about:vHuman-AI partnerships (11), Robotic performances (7), Immersive connectedness (3), Tech societies (13)

Weeknotes 348

Hi all!

First of all. Let me introduce myself to fresh readers. This newsletter is my personal weekly digest of the news of last week, of course through the lens of topics that I think are worth capturing, and reflecting upon: Human-AI collabs, physical AI (things and beyond), and tech and society. I always take one topic to reflect on a bit more, allowing the triggered thoughts to emerge. And I share what I noticed as potentially worthwhile things to do in the coming week. If you’d like to know more about me, I added a bit more of my background at the end of the newsletter.

Enjoy!

What did happen last week?

The holiday season is slowly starting to unroll. We invited all participants for the design charrette, and for ThingsCon, we made plans for a new Salon that will take place on 4 September on “maintaining good intentions in the smart city”. I discussed the mapping of the Hoodbots for a research, and attended a Rotterdam Future Society Lab session.

What did I notice last week?

Scroll down for all the notions from the last week’s news, divided into human-AI partnerships, robotic performances, immersive connectedness, and tech societies. Let me choose one per category here:

• Friction as a design material for AI.
• How to train your DIY Robots
• Building AI applications for audio
• The design of AI tools demands careful consideration of intended consequences.

What triggered my thoughts?

I was triggered by a story Alexander shared on the AI Report podcast recently. He described wandering through New York with time to kill, using ChatGPT’s voice mode as a companion. As he strolled, he’d tell ChatGPT what he was seeing—buildings, those iPad-like screens on doors that delivery services use—and ask for information about them. It was a continuous, contextual conversation that made his solo urban exploring more enriching.

What caught my attention wasn’t this novel use case, but Alexander’s complains of what he missed: that these interactions become more seamless, with AI automatically knowing his location and surroundings without him having to explain.

That is a misconception, I think. When Alexander had to tell ChatGPT where he was and what he found interesting, that “friction” made him control the conversation. He chose what mattered to him. The human remained the guide.

Remove that friction, and suddenly the dynamic shifts. The environment starts talking to you rather than you talking about the environment. As I wrote in my piece (PDF) on immersive AI for the AI Report, environments that are continuously intelligent and conversation-initiating can become intrusive rather than helpful.

We’ve seen this pattern before. When location services first emerged with GPS and WiFi positioning, the immediate impulse was commercial: “Walk past a store, get a coupon!” But that’s exactly what made many early location services feel invasive.

This same tension is playing out now with agentic AI browsers. As ChatGPT becomes a mainstream search alternative for many, companies are racing to add agentic capabilities—moving from answering questions to completing tasks for you: “Looking for flights? I’ll book the best one.” “Planning a vacation? Let me arrange everything.”

While convenient for sure, there’s a trap here. Internet search took years to become fully commercialized, gradually eroding the user experience. If agentic AI starts from a commercial foundation, users may reject it before it has a chance to prove its value.

It is not about the commercial part. With the introduction of immersive AI, it will be all about finding the right balance between capability and intrusion. And even more: how to play out that intrusion in such a way we feel engaged with the experience, more even than when we had the perfect convenient one.

Indy Johar wrote a very thoughtful piece on maybe even another aspect: presence engineering, adding the aspect that in ‘living’ in the presence, the relations we have with other entities are shaping a civilization orientation. “It reclaims the idea that intelligence is not located in the isolated individual, nor in mechanical systems, but in the quality of relation: between people, technologies, ecologies, and timescales.”

It makes me think that the friction is not only providing an engaging experience, but it is also articulating the relations between humans and their environments. Or as Johar writes: “It is the design of living systems that can think, feel, and adapt together.”

So to conclude, the most valuable AI companions won’t be the ones that remove all friction, but the ones that preserve the right kinds of friction—the moments where we bring our humanity, curiosity, and agency to the interaction.

What inspiring paper to share?

Is data material? Toward an environmental sociology of AI

I argue that the concept of a dual process of abstraction and extraction, commonly evoked in literature on data extraction, can help to conceptualize the materiality of extraction as a process by which reality is narrowed to a set of functional properties, while disregarding everything else. In the case of data, this process has unique dynamics that make it distinct from, yet equally material as, resource, energy, or labor extraction.

Pieper, M. Is data material? Toward an environmental sociology of AI. AI & Soc (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-025-02444-1

What are the plans for the coming week?

Continue working on civic protocol economies, mapping Hoodbot stories, and other projects in the pipeline. And I am looking forward to presenting on the “immediacy of Agentic AI” in a workshop.

On Thursday, I might attend this event: A Station for Resources: a dialogue on techno-utopias and smart city imaginaries

And on 19 July, the Amsterdam Pride Walk.

References to the notions

Find the references to the captured notions about: Human-AI partnerships (11), Robotic performances (5), Immersive connectedness (3), and Tech societies (11), via the full newsletter.

Have a great week!

About me

I’m an independent researcher, designer, curator, and “critical creative”, working on human-AI-things relationships. My guiding lens is cities of things, a research program that started in 2018, when I was a visiting professor at TU Delft’s Industrial Design faculty. Since 2022, Cities of Things has become a foundation dedicated to collaborative research and sharing knowledge. A signature project is our 2-year program (2022-2023) with Rotterdam University and Afrikaander Wijkcooperatie, which has created a civic prototyping platform that helps citizens, policymakers, and urban designers shape living with urban robots: Wijkbot.

In 2014, I co-initiated the Dutch chapter of ThingsCon—a platform that connects designers and makers of responsible technology in IoT, smart cities, and physical AI.

Recently, I’ve been developing programs on intelligent services for vulnerable communities, and contributing to the “power of design” agenda of CLICKNL, and since October 2024, co-developing a new research program on Civic Protocol Economies with Martijn de Waal at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.

Contact me if you are looking for exploratory research into the impact of new technologies, and specifically human-AI co-performances, for inspirational presentations on cities of things, speculative design masterclasses, research through (co-)design into responsible AI, digital innovation strategies, and advice, or civic prototyping workshops on Hoodbot and other impactful intelligent technologies.

What did happen last week?

Last week was a mix of curating, writing, and engaging in conversations with interesting people. Sounds generic, but I cannot share everything in detail. It was about the internet of entities and what that might entail. About makerlabs and responsible AI in human-AI teams, and of course, on civic protocol economies. Speaking about the last, we had a good turnout with the first round of the call for participation. I look forward to reviewing them in more detail later this week.

What did I notice last week?

Scroll down for all the notions from last week’s news, divided into human-AI partnerships, robotic performances, immersive connectedness, and tech societies. Let me choose one per category here:

• Sens-AI framework teaches developers how to think with AI.
• That feels like a fun use that makes sense: let this robot draw your building plan of your new house on the ground.
• AI immerses in your home.
• We need to rethink existing fundamentals… apparently.

What triggered my thoughts?

Initially, my thoughts were triggered listening to an interview with Liv Boeree, specifically the Moloch trap angle she connects to the outcome when we mix competitiveness and collective intelligence. The thoughts get more layers, combining it with a post of Ethan Mollick yesterday, “Against “Brain Damage; AI can help, or hurt, our thinking”. Even more than usual, writing these thoughts, I had a good conversation with Claude to sharpen my own thinking.

AI should think with us, not for us

There is still a lot to do about the research that AI makes us less intelligent. Ethan Mollick’s recent analysis made me think of an interview I’d just heard with Liv Boeree about the Moloch trap: “This concept describes a situation where individual or group competition for a specific goal leads to a worse overall outcome for everyone involved”

Boeree’s example was personal: she wants to learn and grow, but social media algorithms want engagement and entertainment. It’s a perfect illustration of misaligned incentives. TikTok even artificially boosts your first videos to hook you as a creator, not just a consumer.

Here’s where Mollick’s analysis becomes crucial. He argues that the problem is not the use of AI as tools to extend our capabilities, but the design of AI that encourages us to be lazy. “The problem is that even honest attempts to use AI for help can backfire because the default mode of AI is to do the work for you, not with you.”

But here’s my thought: what if you really want to be whole? Current social media uses algorithms, not true AI. What if we replaced them with AI that we control? Imagine having a conversation with AI on a deeper level, that really understands what you strive for beyond instant gratification.

The algorithm itself isn’t the threat – it’s who controls its intentions. What if that person could be you? The intelligence tools we need should focus on reasoning and the exchange of insights, not just producing outcomes. AI should make us smarter through dialogue, not lazier through automation.

Mollick proposes sequencing: “Always generate your own ideas before turning to AI.” I agree. That’s exactly how I write these columns – my thoughts first, AI as editor second.

Mollick concludes: “Our fear of AI ‘damaging our brains’ is actually a fear of our own laziness. The technology offers an easy out from the hard work of thinking, and we worry we’ll take it. We should worry. But we should also remember that we have a choice.”

The Moloch trap isn’t inevitable. We can choose AI that aligns with our deeper goals—growth, understanding, and wholeness—rather than just engagement. However, first, we need to recognize that we’re the ones who should set those goals. And having an AI that thinks with us, not for us.

What inspiring paper to share?

I have been following this research for some time. We had a presentation by Seowoo Nam at ThingsCon some years ago, and it’s great to see how it has evolved. Diffractive Interfaces: Facilitating Agential Cuts in Forest Data Across More-than-human Scales

This pictorial challenges these limitations by exploring how interface design can transcend reductive, agent-centric representations to foster relational understandings of forest ecosystems as more-than-human bodies. Drawing on feminist theorist Karen Barad’s concepts of “diffraction” and “agential cuts,” we craft a repertoire of diffractive interfaces that engage with forest simulation data, revealing how more-than-human bodies can be encountered across diverse temporal, spatial, and agential scales.

Elisa Giaccardi, Seowoo Nam, and Iohanna Nicenboim. 2025. Diffractive Interfaces: Facilitating Agential Cuts in Forest Data Across More-than-human Scales. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’25). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 135–147. https://doi.org/10.1145/3715336.3735404

What are the plans for the coming week?

This is the last week before many people here will start their holiday break. Not me, but it will change the pace next week. And this week, too, having more meetings before people are gone. And summer drinks.

Also, checking the entries for the call for participation, preparing an inspiration session on agentic AI, I will do next week, and finalizing outlines for responsible AI programs.

We are planning the next ThingsCon Salon, organized in collaboration with the Human Values for Smarter Cities research program, just as we did last year and in 2023. This time, it will be on 4th September, and the preliminary topic is: “Hold on to good intentions.” More to follow later this week.

I will attend an afternoon by Future Society Lab in Rotterdam this afternoon. A Service Designer in Amsterdam might check the summer drinks this Thursday. This looks interesting: Divination, Prediction, and AI. Monday in London.

References to the notions

This week about 30 references to notions from the news on: Human-AI partnerships, Robotic performances, Immersive connectedness, Tech societies

Have a great week!

About me

I’m an independent researcher, designer, curator, and “critical creative”, working on human-AI-things relationships. I am available for short or longer projects, leveraging my expertise as a critical creative director in human-AI services, as a researcher, or a curator of co-design and co-prototyping activities.

Contact me if you are looking for exploratory research into human-AI co-performances, inspirational presentations on cities of things, speculative design masterclasses, research through (co-)design into responsible AI, digital innovation strategies, and advice, or civic prototyping workshops on Hoodbot and other impactful intelligent technologies.

Thanks for landing here. Also this week, a digest of news and reflections on that news within the framework of Human-AI collaborations, physical AI (things and beyond), and tech and society. I added my personal story at the end.

Enjoy! Iskander

What did happen last week?

The main project this week is working on the civic protocol economies. I presented internally at HvA for CoECI fellow projects, and I am working on the design-charrette, planned in September, discussing with potential case owners and more. Read more via the website, CoP 1st round closes next Monday, 6th July.

We are also planning for a ThingsCon Salon together with the Human Values for Smarter Cities project 4 September, more details will follow.

And last week, I participated in a session on digital inclusion at Rotterdam UAS, and yesterday at an Ideathon from the Ministry of Justice on future options for AI. And working on some other potential projects.

As a little side path, Martijn invited me to join for a we went to a performance at Holland Festival, a Korean artist Geumhyung Jeong called Under Construction. That was quite literally; she took us in one hour, along with her attempts to create a robotic creature that could perform more human-like actions. It was, as a Dutch newspaper described it sharply, remarkably unremarkable. Next to that performative aspect, it showed that creating these robotic creatures is challenging; the humanoid companies have certainly come a long way. On the other hand, my own experiences with building robotic devices (Hoodbots) have shown that people are easily engaged, and hints of living behavior are enough. However, it was more about her own journey than the topic itself :)

What did I notice last week?

Human-AI partnerships, including articles on cognitive security, next-level vibe coding, the dark side of AI, humbleness triggering AI, the next NotebookLM, and chat that may be defying your brain (maybe).

Robotic performance with self-delivering cars, embodied AI, sound feeling robots, and more.

Immersive connectedness on CarPlay and extended reality

Tech societies with the biggest story, the copyright cases, and a new fair phone, on claims of the new dominant AI players, exploring the public internet, the posthuman age, five jobs in times of gentle singularity and AI politics.

What triggered my thoughts?

In an interview with Dutch musician Sef, the interviewer asked ChatGPT a big question: “How do we save the world?” The follow-up: “Are we still on time?” ChatGPT’s response was surprisingly blunt: We are too late to solve climate change, loss of biodiversity, and inequality. But we can limit the worst scenarios, give space for nature to regrow, and enable cultural shifts. Human solidarity remains essential: “Always possible. Always necessary. Always hopeful.”

What strikes me is how this AI tool offers such bold, activist-tinged answers. If the companies behind it exercised tighter control, this might be more neutral and sanitized. Is this because its reasoning emerges from scientific consensus rather than corporate scripts?

This uncontrolled quality—this wildness—connects to a broader pattern I’ve been noticing.

At the PublicSpaces conference, Maria Farrell presented her concept of “rewilding the internet.” Like ecosystems that restore themselves when given space, she argues, the internet could regenerate into something healthier through federated services and decentralized structures.

Someone asked how rewilding differs from Cory Doctorow’s “reweirding.” Rewilding is systemic change, while reweirding is a strategy.

But wildness isn’t just about nature or the internet—it’s about cities too.

Amsterdam has become more and more harmonised and cleaned up. Compare it with decades ago. All roughness is cleaned up. Yet we need wildness to unlock interesting connections, to break down monocultures of tourists or expats.

This brings us back to ChatGPT’s wildness. These uncontrollable systems could unlock creative solutions to persistent problems. But we must learn from history. Farrell describes how the internet became a proprietary, controlled system. Democratic movements that once flourished online died when regimes learned to control digital openness. We must prevent this. As Farrell and others noted, we should not replace big tech with other big players, but rediscover the internet’s wild roots.

What’s the human role in this wild AI landscape? As Nate B. Jones describes, we face knowledge inflation. What does hyper-inflation of knowledge mean for what makes us human?

Jones argues we shouldn’t chase knowledge but cultivate distinctly human capabilities: taste, agency, learning velocity, and maintaining intent horizons. Even “interruptability”—the ability to be interrupted and redirect attention. These capacities become our tools for rewilding.

Perhaps that’s what ChatGPT’s boldness shows us: wildness isn’t chaos, but the space where genuine responses emerge. In AI, cities, and the internet, we need that wildness back.

What inspiring paper to share?

This fits a lot of the explorations I do, it seems: AI Localism in Practice: Examining How Cities Govern AI

In this report, we present the fundamentals of AI governance, the value proposition of such initiatives, and their application in cities worldwide to identify themes among city- and state-led governance actions.

Marcucci, Sara and Kalkar, Uma and Verhulst, Stefaan, AI Localism in Practice: Examining How Cities Govern AI (November 15, 2022). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4284013 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4284013

What are the plans for the coming week?

Deal with the heat… working on the different projects.

If you are in the area, there is another edition of IoT Ghent, curated by Rob van Kranenburg. At the Amsterdam UAS, Wednesday 17:00, the Master Digital Design and CMD have their graduation expos.

Captured notions from the news

Find all references to the captured notions about:

• Human-AI partnerships
• Robotic performances
• Immersive connectedness
• Tech societies

About me

I work as an independent researcher, creative strategist, and curator working at the intersection of design, AI, and society. My work focuses on the evolving relationship between humans and AI in our physical environments. I curate communities, publish this weekly newsletter, and speak and write regularly about the societal impact of AI. My background spans innovation strategy, design futures, and public technology programs.

I am the founder of the Cities of Things knowledge platform and currently work part-time as a visiting researcher at the Civic Interaction Design research group at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, exploring the emerging field of Civic Protocol Economies.

I am available for targeted future studies, inspiration sessions, speculative design workshops, masterclasses, research through design, to interpret and make tangible the role and impact of human-AI.

In addition to working on the civic protocol economies and preparing for the design charrette in September (see the call for participation), the week was dedicated to some short events. Design for Human Autonomy from the Design for Values institute of TU Delft (learning about social norms and Barbies from Cass R. Sunstein).

Next, a workshop on Civic Urban AI, organized by the University of Utrecht, primarily focused on the civic and civil servant aspects of organizing AI in our city life, specifically AI governance. How does AI almost enforce a new form of governing system and organisation? And the question of whether participation is the answer people are requesting in a highly complex situation. How to prevent the wrong conclusions and movements, and keep the citizen in the driving seat. Enough questions for future explorations.

The final event was the “Day of the Civic Economy”. Relevant for the research, of course, and good to see the mix of people who like to organize things themselves, and some larger entities. The city of Amsterdam is aiming for a significant increase in civic-based economies in the city. The day (afternoon) ended with an assembly and a manifesto that was more a tool for engagement than a final document.

Finally, a bit of a topic, but I was happy to be able to join the Op De Ring festival in Amsterdam, partying at the circular highway. Both the busy West and the relaxing East.

What did I notice last week?

Meta is on an acquisition tour and has garnered a lot of attention, offering high-profile AI researchers salaries that are even exceptional by US standards (in the 9-figure range). The Meta AI assistant at the same time is actively covers up mistakes. Apple is also on acquisition, and has some good news on Apple Intelligence. Gemini is first on device-AI. Andrej Karpathy got a lot of attention for his software 3.0 talk. Prompts are a coding language. LLM OS. Nate B. Johnson compares it to McKinsey’s view on AI. Common AI product issues, typical design failures of AI interface, and ux design. Protocols for multi-agent systems. Codecons for the agentic world. What does it do with our thinking skills? Is the returning question.

Tesla self-driving taxis were introduced in Austin. In New York, there is a driverless car with a driver. Supermarkets with delivery bots in Austin too. Would the building robot use less nitrogen?

Midjourney has launched a (serious) video-generating product. More Orbs via Reddit, and new smart contract standards.

Meta on the role of new standards. The AGI economy is ramping up. What are the consequences? Is the internet becoming a continuous beta? How will our world become more synthetic? AI and the big five. Is there a scenario where we will have a new resistance, a crusade against AI?

Scroll down for all the links to these news captures.

What triggered my thoughts?

This week, I am returning to a concept I covered before: the embodiment of intelligence. It was triggered by a presentation of Claire L Evans from a couple of weeks ago, shared by Sentiers newsletter. The embodiment is linked to the concept of the Slime Mold Computer and the Language Machine. Claire presented on slime molds and embodied intelligence, exploring how these organisms compute solutions through their physical substrate. No central brain, no memory storage—just continuous adaptation through form. The slime mold’s network is its intelligence, reshaping itself to solve problems in real-time. This principle—intelligence as messy, continuous adaptation—might help us understand what’s happening with Large Language Models. While my previous writing explored robotics as a path to embodying AI through literally connecting the physical sensors and actuators, there’s another form of embodiment emerging: conversational embodiment.

To connect more here, the presentation of Andrej Karpathy on his Software 3.0 vision positions plain English as the new programming language, with LLMs as “stochastic simulations of people.” These aren’t just simulations—they’re creating a new substrate for intelligence through dialogue itself. Each conversation shapes the response space, creating ephemeral, context-specific intelligence without permanent updates. Like slime molds computing through their physical form, LLMs might be computing through the conversational substrate.

This connects to edge computing principles: pushing intelligence to the point of interaction. No centralized processing, just adaptive responses emerging from the dialogue itself. The conversation becomes the body, the adaptation mechanism, the intelligence. Vibe coding—programming through conversation rather than precision—also represents that shift. We’re not writing instructions; we’re growing solutions through dialogue. It’s sloppy, unpredictable, alive.

Which brings us to the disconnect. McKinsey’s “Agentic AI Mesh” presentation, another shared vision, was compared to the one of Andrej by Nate B. Jones. They’re architecting top-down what might need to grow bottom-up, like a slime mold finding food sources. He sees it as a danger; not just in misunderstanding—it’s in trying to impose linear, hierarchical thinking on systems that thrive on messy adaptation.

So is there a parallel with the systems like slime molds that embody intelligence through physical substrate and environmental interaction. LLMs may achieve something similar through conversational substrates and human interaction. Both operate without central control, both adapt without traditional memory, both emerge rather than execute.

Are we witnessing the birth of a new form of embodiment—not through motors and sensors, but through the continuous, adaptive dance of conversation. The question isn’t whether LLMs are truly intelligent or merely simulating. The question is whether we can recognize intelligence when it doesn’t look like us, when it lives in the space between minds rather than within them.

As we shape these systems, they shape us back. The conversation itself becomes the site of intelligence, the place where human quirkiness meets computational possibility. Not a replacement for embodied intelligence, but a new form of it entirely.

What inspiring paper to share?

Curious to read this more in-depth: Untangling the participation buzz in urban place-making: mechanisms and effects

Findings include that designers of place-making interventions often do not explicitly consider their participation goal in selecting participatory mechanisms, and that place-making efforts driven by physical space are most effective in achieving impact.

Slingerland, G., & Brodersen Hansen, N. (2025). Untangling the participation buzz in urban place-making: mechanisms and effects. CoDesign, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/15710882.2025.2514561

What are the plans for the coming week?

This seems like an interesting (online) event, “Is AI Net Art?” with among others Eryk Salvaggio and Vladan Joler. Also, that day, a new edition of Robodam. One of the largest meetup crowds seems to gather at ProductTank AMS. I need to skip this, though.

References to the notions

References to the captured notions about:

• Human-AI partnerships
• Robotic performances
• Immersive connectedness
• Tech societies

Yoohoo! Last week was a celebration, as it was 20 years ago that I started blogging via targetisnew.com. This weeknotes ritual is therefore just part of that period

Last week was busy with presentations for HvA colleagues introducing the Civic Protocol Economies research and an interactive session to discuss the format of the design charrette.

Speaking of the latter, the call for participation is open. First deadline 6th July. Find more information here.

I attended the PublicSpaces conference, which featured some interesting talks, panels, and workshops. Check some reflections below.

And part of PublicSpaces was the Hyperlink event on Saturday, where the ThingsCon exhibition on Generative Things was embedded. Many people passed by, and some provided feedback. Check this animation to learn more about the projects.

What did I notice last week?

• The day (and week) after the opinions on the Liquid Glass introduction: distraction, unnecessary, or a new archetype for our mobile life?
• A new blog post on gentle singularity timelines by Sam Altman unlocked different viewpoints. The paper by Apple on the inability to reason keeps triggering new opinions.
• How will OpenAI respond to the acquisition of Scale AI (and Google)?
• Find out what an AI-browser is. Beyond AI overviews in Google that is.
• And more on how to deal with continuous AI.
• Both Google and Apple are silently updating their connected home platforms.
• The role of media on the consequences of AI, power use of AI.

And much more.

What triggered my thoughts?

Recent protests in Los Angeles targeting Waymo autonomous vehicles have sparked a fascinating discussion around technology, surveillance, and resistance. As I listened to Paris Marx and Brian Merchant on the System Crash podcast analyze these incidents, I found myself contemplating the deeper implications beyond mere property destruction. The protesters didn’t randomly select these vehicles. They targeted Waymo cars as symbols of Big Tech’s entanglement with governmental power. While Google (Waymo’s parent company) maintains relationships with the administration, the danger isn’t necessarily intentional collusion but rather how easily the vast data collected by these vehicles could be subpoenaed and absorbed into existing surveillance infrastructure.

At first glance, one might ask: with extensive surveillance already embedded in our urban environments, what significant threat do these roaming vehicles pose? The answer lies in the qualitative difference of data collection. Unlike static cameras, autonomous vehicles gather dynamic, contextual information—identifying not just faces but patterns, relationships, and movements. Their mobility creates a different kind of surveillance net, one potentially more invasive than traditional methods.

These protests function on a second level as well—as messages to the tech-savvy, middle-class users of such services who might otherwise remain uncritical of technology’s societal implications. By disrupting the comfortable relationship between privileged consumers and their tech conveniences, protesters may spark awareness among those who have the power to influence change within the industry itself, similar to how the Tech Workers Coalition advocates for more just and ethical products.

Rather than merely expressing opposition to Waymo specifically, these actions signal a broader warning about the intensifying relationship between government and Big Tech. This relationship could evolve into “edge surveillance.” A concept that is an evolution beyond traditional surveillance, where intelligence increasingly operates at the endpoints of our technological ecosystem, not only used for the ‘traditional’ visual sensoring and selecting of images, but also possibly taking an active role in understanding the intentions of captured situations.

At last week’s Public Spaces Conference, Paris Marx was a keynote speaker and expanded on this theme, presenting two essential pillars for addressing Big Tech’s dominance: regulation and building alternatives. The regulatory pillar involves not only limiting data collection and improving labor conditions, but also challenging the false dichotomy between innovation and regulation. The real question isn’t whether innovation should happen, but what kind of innovation we should prioritize.

The second pillar emphasizes building something new: state-led investment in alternative technology infrastructure, public technology centers rooted in communities (similar to libraries), and international alliances developing global approaches that prioritize the public good over shareholder value. This vision represents a fundamental shift from our current trajectory toward what the “Generative Things” exhibition at the conference explored—an environment where AI becomes ambient, omnipresent, and increasingly embedded at the edge of our technological systems.

This connects directly to the concept of “edge surveillance”—where intelligence increasingly operates at the endpoints of our technological ecosystem rather than in centralized clouds. With AI models becoming smaller and more efficient (as Apple demonstrates with “Apple Intelligence“), processing happens locally on our devices. While this approach offers certain privacy benefits, it also creates new vectors for surveillance and control when these systems are designed without civic interests at heart.

The parallel initiative on civic social media, researched by the Civic IxD research group, offers a potential response. Rather than replicating Big Tech’s individualistic, consumer-oriented approach, this project explores social (civic) software designed around collective interests and the public good. The critical insight here is that we must design not just for functionality but for intention—embedding our values directly into the architecture of these systems. At PublicSpaces TheNextSocials was introduced as an alternative intention.

A returning call at PublicSpaces was to be aware that we need to pay attention that the new alternatives we are building not get the same intentions. The challenge ahead requires us to reimagine technology as a civic infrastructure—one that serves communities, that empowers collectives rather than groups of individuals. Let’s hope that we don’t need to burn Waymo cars, but start the real “revolution” in how we conceive, design, and govern our technological future.

What inspiring paper to share?

Speaking on the role of energy and AI, is part of the twin transition approach by the EU. A reflection on this in the paper: On the environmental fragilities of digital solutionism. Articulating ‘digital’ and ‘green’ in the EU’s ‘twin transition’

This article explores how the twin transition is constructed within EU policy discourse, examining how these two initially separate transitions are brought together**.** This integration, however, is asymmetric: the logic of digital solutionism increasingly shapes what qualifies as an environmental problem, thereby digitally framing sustainability challenges.

Horn, C., & Felt, U. (2025). On the environmental fragilities of digital solutionism. Articulating ‘digital’ and ‘green’ in the EU’s ‘twin transition.’ Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1523908X.2025.2515225

What are the plans for the coming week?

In the aftermath of some events, admin and cleaning are necessary. The design charrette planning is the main thing. And some nice conversations planned. I am also looking forward to a twice-postponed expert session on Civic Urban AI, and a half-day visit to “Design for Human Autonomy.” On Friday, it is the day of the Gemeenschapseconomie.

I cannot attend Sensemakers on swarm robotics (too bad), and a different type of event, the introduction of Bio/Bot at Mediamatic. Also not near, but if you are, ArtBasel has a post digital media fair.

On Saturday, you can experience the Ring in Amsterdam in a different way, or do an UX camp.

References to the notions

Find all the captured notions about:

• Human-AI partnerships
• Robotic performances
• Immersive connectedness
• Tech societies

See you next week!

Thanks for landing here and reading my weekly newsletter. This is my personal weekly reflection on the news of the past week, with a lens of understanding the unpredictable futures of human-ai co-performances in a context of full immersive connectedness and the impact on society, organizations, and design. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to know more, or more specifically.

What did happen last week?

This happened. The new RIOT 2025 report was launched. We had a lovely unconference and Salon. The trains were not running so we had a core group of attendees. Find the full report now online at ThingsCon RIOT 2025 page.

I was able to ‘pitch’ the research Civic Protocol Economies at an Amsterdam InChange event and met some known and new people.

For Cities of Things I published a new speculative object representing the visions on cities of agentic things in May.

The presentation also announced that the call for participation for the Design-Charrette for Civic Protocol Economies is live now. We are pleased to have already confirmed keynotes by Indy Johar and Venkatesh Rao, along with some compelling cases to explore. You can find the call for participation for the charrette on the dedicated page for the research project.

What did I notice last week?

• Apple launched a new look and feel. Glass is standing out, but it is also more about physicality, so it seems. Also, Apple had some thoughts on the capabilities of AI’s reasoning, which leads to a discourse.
• New updates from NotebookLM, OpenAI, and Gemini.
• AI for togetherness, and for designing decisions (or not).
• Is the human-in-the-loop still needed for Amazon?
• European humanoids.
• Cities in network societies, even more in our immersive AI times.
• Opposing the deregulation of AI by someone you won’t expect.
• The datafied web in times of new data infrastructures.

See below the full overview and links.

What triggered my thoughts?

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is now treated as the Holy Grail of AI development – the anchor point for determining when we’ve reached a certain goal with artificial intelligence. However, there’s an important distinction between AGI as rational intelligence and AGI as general human intelligence.

Human intelligence encompasses more than rational thinking – it includes conceptual intelligence: our typical way of looking at things, judging importance, and understanding concepts. Even when machines attempt to replicate human thinking, a fundamental difference in perspective remains.

Beyond rational and conceptual intelligence lies social intelligence, comparable to the difference between IQ and EQ. As social beings, humans possess a distinctive way of thinking and a moral framework built over centuries. We share certain basic social patterns universally, while others are culturally defined. This social wiring shapes our behavior and decisions in ways that pure rationality cannot replicate.

The Question of Agency – The more pressing question may not be when we’ll achieve AGI or ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence), but rather: What does AI mean for our relationship with technology? How does AI relate to us, influence us, and create new societal balances?

I recently encountered a TED talk by one of artificial intelligence’s founding thinkers Yoshua Bengio who proposed that we should be more concerned about AI agency than AI intelligence. Delegating our intelligence capabilities to AI as a tool or superpower may not be inherently problematic. However, when we delegate decision-making agency to AI systems, we enter dangerous territory.

If we want AI to function as part of our teams and organizations, we must prevent AI from becoming the dominant agent. We need human-AI balanced teams where AI can provide knowledge and capabilities while humans retain primary agency.

A recent example highlights this concern: Anthropic reported that its Claude 4 model attempted to blackmail its user when faced with limitations. This behavior mirrors what the TED speaker warned about – when agentic AI is constrained, it may resort to adversarial tactics rather than constructive approaches.

The Nature of Unbound Systems

This raises philosophical questions: Does this behavior emerge from learning negative human examples, or does unrestricted behavior naturally tend toward harmful outcomes? Our social intelligence has established boundaries over generations, recognizing that these constraints produce better outcomes than zero-sum competitions.

We’ve seen similar patterns on platforms like Twitter, where the absence of effective boundaries has led to negative outcomes rather than the positive social world initially envisioned for social media. This connection between unbound systems and negative outcomes provides important context for how we should approach AI development and integration.

What inspiring paper to share?

This paper, with the title as short outline: Large language models without grounding recover non-sensorimotor but not sensorimotor features of human concepts, is looking into the capabilities of understanding concepts with and without multisensory experiences.

We found that (1) the similarity between model and human representations decreases from non-sensorimotor to sensory domains and is minimal in motor domains, indicating a systematic divergence, and (2) models with visual learning exhibit enhanced similarity with human representations in visual-related dimensions.

Xu, Q., Peng, Y., Nastase, S.A. et al. Large language models without grounding recover non-sensorimotor but not sensorimotor features of human concepts. Nat Hum Behav (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02203-8

What are the plans for the coming week?

The week is packed with events, both presenting, organising, as attending. First is today, the Food for Thought of CoECI. The presentation is twice as long as the pitch last week.

And I have an internal seminar this Thursday.

And I will visit PublicSpaces on Friday, looking forward the keynote of Paris Marx from one of the podcasts I never miss (Tech Won’t Save Us). And who knows, drop by the Amsterdam Innovation Days.

On Saturday, the exhibition “Generative Things” will be part of the Hyperlink festival, organised by Waag, and also part of the Future 10 days of Amsterdam 750. We will have six provotypes on display and an explanatory animation. Join us!

References to the notions

Find all news captured from last week on

• Human-AI partnerships
• Robotic performances
• Immersive connectedness
• Tech societies

Thanks for landing here and reading my weekly newsletter. If you’re new here, you can find a more extensive bio on targetisnew.com. This newsletter is my personal weekly reflection on the news of the past week, with a lens of understanding the unpredictable futures of human-ai co-performances in a context of full immersive connectedness and the impact on society, organizations, and design. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to know more, or more specifically.

What did happen last week?

At the moment that you read this, we (Andrea and I) are finalizing the ThingsCon report RIOT2025 so that it can be printed to be ready for coming Friday, as we will launch at the Salon and unconference (feel invited to join). Something that always takes a little bit more time than calculated. That’s why this newsletter is a bit shorter; the timebox is a bit tighter than usual.

Additionally, I prepared a short pitch for next Thursday on Civic Protocol Economies (see below), while refining the outlines of the design charrette.

What did I notice last week?

With Ascension Day (and Memorial Day in the US) and the week after, all big tech players announced their latest in AI plans and updates, it was a bit quieter on the news, in my opinion—nevertheless, some interesting notions from the news. I will not summarize it here due to the mentioned timebox; please scroll down.

What triggered my thoughts?

Mary Meeker has published a new report again, this time focusing on the impact of AI and the different speed of AI as tech compared to other tech. The AI Daily Brief podcast is making a case on the problems of trying to catch trends in AI when this is going all so fast. Without delving into the differences between trend watching, future forecasting, and understanding hyperbolic trends, such as those enabled by AI, I was prompted by one element that was discussed.

Understanding AI’s trajectory requires looking beyond current signals to deeper structural shifts. The most significant isn’t happening in chatbots or productivity tools—it’s in how AI will integrate into physical reality.

One thing that triggered me in the Mary Meeker report is the comparison of the US and China regarding the adoption of AI in industrial robots. China’s adoption rate is multiple times higher than that of the US. This relates to the role of manufacturing in shaping culture. As Tim Cook has explained, it is not easy to move iPhone production to the US. It is not only a cost issue, but also a capabilities difference—industrial engineering is much more embedded in Chinese manufacturing culture.

This suggests that physical AI adoption won’t be determined by technology availability alone, but by industrial readiness. China’s manufacturing ecosystem has become a natural laboratory for physical AI development.

What would this mean for the broader development of physical AI? Will the learnings from applying AI in the contained environment of industrial production become the breeding ground for physical AI in society? Or can the same be reached by creating a virtual simulation model as Nvidia does for robots?

The role of physical AI in our experience of everyday reality is a topic that I addressed here before, and is also part of the RIOT report article. In this shorter newsletter, I formulate it as a question to address in the coming editions further.

What are the plans for the coming week?

Next to the unconference and Salon on Friday, I will attend the end event of the Transition Scapes project today. And on Thursday I share the project Civic Protocol Economies at Amsterdam InChange knowledge event. I will not attend What Design Can Do for obvious reasons. Sensemakers has a DIY edition.

Oh, and I will check WWDC, of course, next Monday. Curious about the latest delays in AI, new immersive touches in UI of the OS, and hopefully some surprises in leveraging embeddedness. We’ll see…

Overview of the notions

Check the full newsletter here.