Notes from the near future
A little curiosity about the machines we're building, and the world we're building with them.
Imagine an assistant that never asks you to open another tab. It untangles your calendar, finds the receipt you forgot to file, and leaves you alone when you finally sit down to think.
Imagine a forecasting club assigning a 25% chance to AGI arriving by the end of 2027. That number is invented for this thought experiment, not a live market price, an expert consensus, or a measured forecast.
An imagined launch, not a real announcement. In this fictional look ahead, GPT-7 is about to arrive, and the familiar countdown has begun: bigger promises, dazzling demos, and a thousand predictions about what happens next.
For an imaginary weekend project, a designer asked an AI to invent a city. It produced efficient streets, tidy parks, and a suspicious lack of places to get lost.
The little robot in our made-up lab had one job: water a basil plant. Every morning it checked the soil.
Picture a notebook that remembers every half-finished idea you've ever written. One afternoon, it points out that your bakery sketch and your abandoned astronomy club have something in common: both need a place for people to gather.
In the imaginary town of Bellweather, the local AI publishes one digest a day. No breaking-news pings.
Signal explores the space between intelligent machines and everyday life. This edition contains seven fictional stories and thought experiments, written for curious humans. Bring your questions. Keep your perspective.