Fiction → Non-fiction
Requests
People with professional training in imagination lead this page. We record their requests for reality — their ideas about where we could be next. Then we collect stories and art expanding on those ideas, and keep an index of real-world organizations working in that direction. Technology is made by people, and people follow art.
Helpful Robots for Local Government
The Request: Exocomp-style Helpers for Village Caretakers
Accuracy would be paramount if we're entrusting it with something like community water safety. There'd be no room for hallucinations. Local government wears many hats — water infrastructure, monitoring, public safety, and the patient work of keeping a small place running. The wish here is for capable, ethically sourced helpers that honor privacy, minimize environmental impact, integrate alongside human staff rather than replace them, and treat resident data with care.
Creative exploration
Fiction expanding on the idea in the request.
Open call — come write something.
Technical exploration
Who's pursuing this goal in the real world.
- MLCommons [Places] — keeping rankings for energy efficiency in new AI models
- Future of Privacy Forum [Places] — easy readers on privacy protections in AI and analytics
- Democratizing AI & Curious Robot Children [Workshops] — research directions for locally-trained AI development
Image: “Cross-connections in plumbing systems”