Tangible evidence
I used AI to design a fake product from 2050: a pillow that simulates a deceased child's heartbeat. By creating realistic IKEA-style ads and marketplace listings, I forced doctors to confront uncomfortable ethical dilemmas.
Category:
Web Design
Author:
Pavel Danyi
Read:
4 mins
Location:
DaNang
Date:
What is speculative design?
My task was to apply speculative design, not to predict the future, but to materialise possible scenarios so we can discuss them before they happen. Roman Sellner and Natálie Káčová gave me a 2050 scenario where grief tech is a common commodity. I built PulseNest, a pillow that plays back a deceased child's heartbeat, and showed its full life cycle: how it's sold, reported and eventually discarded. The power of speculative design lies in its banality. Artifacts that look like your morning news feed are harder to dismiss than sci-fi props, and that's where the unease sets in. Phase 1, the catalog: PulseNest inside a department store catalog aesthetic, priced at £990, turning grief into a shopping cart item. Phase 2, the news: a fictional 2050 news article normalising the technology in public debate. Phase 3, the marketplace: a Facebook Marketplace ad selling the pillow once it's no longer needed, colliding grief with consumerism.
The impact
Working remotely, I doubted whether pixels alone could carry weight. Then I heard psychotherapist Kateřina Hájková Klíčová describe participants' reactions on the podcast Ministerský jednorožec: "I see terror in your eyes." Healthcare professionals didn't react to the aesthetics, they reacted to how available this technology felt. Their first response was rejection, and that was the goal: a safe simulator for a dilemma that's coming.
Conclusion
This project, opened up by my studies at KISK, confirmed that design doesn't only solve problems, it can open them. I'm continuing the work with Roman Sellner and Natálie Káčová.
