a speculative story about living in a contained immersive AI community
To bring the principles and impact of immersive AI to life, two speculative narratives have been developed and visualised.
The Grid is set in a residential building where the residents live in harmony with non-human actors. Decision-making regarding energy management takes place via ‘quadratic’ voting, and the non-human actors play an active, initiating role in putting forward viewpoints and supporting arguments.
The focus of the scenario is the social dimension of such a system and new forms of engagement with one’s living environment. This is made technologically possible by a mesh network and edge AI (SLMs) – both developments that are already feasible. The design of the building and community is loosely inspired by complexes such as De Warren and Schoon Schip in Amsterdam.
The speculative narrative follows a new resident, Lena, who discovers how she feels a connection with everyday objects through her interaction with a combination of digital twins and simulated scenarios. This is linked to collective goals, whereby objects make autonomous choices without human intervention.
The connected infrastructure emerged during the energy crisis, which saw smart devices evolve from mere sensors into autonomous decision-making objects with social skills. This made it possible to take necessary ad hoc decisions.
The scenario highlights how edge AI enables devices to reason locally and form a shadow mini-society, with objects acting as negotiating entities that optimise and maintain informal relationships. Collaboration between human and non-human members of the group takes place during quarterly update meetings, where they reflect on goals and practice.
Based on the full story, NotebookLM created this short movie (in Manga style).