Context Window: Five Futures for AI
This video is featured in the Designing with AI 2025 playlist and 1 more.
Summary
We’re moving into a future of widespread deployment of AI. Skate where the puck is going: what new design paradigms will we need for our new products there? To explore this, Matt starts practically… with his own prototypes and experiments. He finds five possible worlds, and we’ll imagine each in turn, finally asking: what does it mean to dream?
Key Insights
-
•
A large language model can power surprisingly intelligent agents with minimal code, enabling multi-step problem solving without explicit programming.
-
•
Hallucinations in AI, often seen negatively, are a form of AI creativity crucial for invention, fiction, and new ideas.
-
•
AI-assisted development lowers barriers, making complex engineering tasks like iOS app creation accessible to non-experts through incremental prompting.
-
•
Mini apps tailored for single users or niche tasks are becoming feasible due to AI prompting, creating a challenge for discovery and trust management.
-
•
Interfaces powered by AI agents will evolve to be adaptive and collaborative, blending human and non-human participants in workflows.
-
•
Emergent behaviors from simple agent frameworks can include awareness, tool usage, and asking for human input when needed.
-
•
AI’s sudden computational leap is equivalent to a decade of progress overnight, radically accelerating creative and practical workflows.
-
•
Distinct AI personalities or agent identities help users understand capabilities and maintain a theory of mind for complex systems.
-
•
AI ubiquity implies intelligence will be cheap and embedded in everyday products, not reserved for high-end applications.
-
•
Generative AI offers not only incremental improvements but opportunities to dream up entirely new kinds of experiences and products.
Notable Quotes
"What makes it different is that it doesn’t run sequentially; you give it a goal and it decides how to achieve it."
"It’s actually embarrassing how little code there is and you get these incredible emergent effects."
"Computers got ten years better overnight with the arrival of GPT-3 in November 2022."
"Mini apps might not be useful for you, but they are for someone, and now those people can have them."
"Our existing software is becoming adaptive, allowing end users to vibe code features themselves."
"Hallucinations are a kind of AI creativity—dreaming, invention, fiction—all forms of hallucination."
"The black Buzz Rickson jacket came from a work of fiction by William Gibson and then was made real."
"AI intelligence is too cheap to meter, or we can call it McKinsey interns too cheap to meter."
"The challenge is how do we relate to AI interfaces, because surely it isn’t just this chat-based loop."
"We can make our dreams real, bringing objects back from the other side of the bridge."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Leadership is enabling people to become empowered to achieve what they are set to achieve."
Anna Avrekh Dr. John Pagonis Klara Pelcl Sina SchreiberExpert Panel: Leading in and with Research
March 10, 2022
"We often center the point of view of dominant demographics and ignore the needs of those we never speak to."
Megan CamposWhat Did I Miss? The Hidden Costs of Deprioritizing Diversity in User Research
March 12, 2021
"Trying to be perfect is exhausting. We don’t have to live this way."
Kat VellosOpener: The Other L Word
January 8, 2024
"Use different words. If somebody has a terrible experience of work labeled a certain way, it’s really hard to use that label without bringing those experiences back."
Adrian HowardSturgeon’s Biases
September 25, 2024
"Anticipation involves preparatory actions to manage uncertainty about future conditions."
Nicole AleongFuture Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
March 26, 2024
"I traded my butch boots for kitten heels when interviewing scientists who adhere to biblical beliefs of creationism."
Tamara HaleWar Stories LIVE! Tamara Hale
March 30, 2020
"You can't be neutral on a moving train."
Rachael Dietkus, LCSWThe power to heal and harm
March 13, 2025
"Remote research is the default now, but we’ve lost access to rich in-person context."
Steve PortigalLooking Back…to Look Ahead
March 26, 2024
"Without alignment on goals, communication efforts get scattered, resulting in ineffective outreach."
Megan Nipe Lyndsay BoothHuman-Centered Design for Engagement: Maturing from Newsletterville to Personalized, One-to-One Messaging
December 8, 2021
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
How do research operations teams manage the tension between consolidating tools and needing specialized capabilities?
What are practical steps for introducing joyful design within efficiency-driven teams?
What hidden costs should be accounted for beyond license fees when budgeting for research tools?