On 17 July, Cities of Things was invited by Catch A Fire Agency to organise, design, and moderate a speculative design workshop for one of their clients on the topic of Agentic AI and its relation to the addiction to immediacy.
The workshop was part of a full-day program for a group of marketing professionals, and the time was limited (1 hour), so the speculative design part could only touch the surface. It worked very well, however, to engage with the thoughts I shared on the topic in an opening presentation. The flow of the session was roughly as follows: a 5-minute welcome, a 15-minute inspirational talk on the topic, a 10-minute introduction to speculative design and scenarios, a 15-minute group-based engagement with the topic through concepting an agentic object in an immediacy situated context, and a 15-minute sharing and recap.
I created a fresh presentation that combines thinking on immersive AI in urban spaces with the culture of immediacy. I introduced a model, the “triad of immersion,” that generates a so-called superstimulus effect by combining agentic AI, the cult of immediacy, and the physical environment as context. This SSE is accelerating the wheel of addiction even more. Based on these insights, I created four scenarios for the hybrid futures. The groups thought of an agentic generative object to make this tangible.
The updated story on things with agency in relation to immedicacy worked out nicely, and resonated with my earlier research on predictive relations.
The use of speculative design, including the application of the Design Fiction Work Kit and LEGO tools to express ideas, proved to structure the workshop and deliver on its output, even though time was too short for fleshed-out prototypes.
I am happy to share more details on request. Email me if you are interested!
Below are a few snippets from the presentation.
