(non) adversarial living companions

Embedding AI into Everyday Objects

As generative AI starts to gain form and animacy, how will our relationships with the algorithmic world shift from typical, mediated interactions to something more lived, embodied, and mutual — blurring the boundaries between tool and companion, object and subject, or adversary and an ally.

The work speculates on a near-future in which AI’s physicalization doesn’t follow conventional technoutopian typologies — like humanoid robots or sleek devices — but instead emerges through familiar, overlooked forms, such as a chair.

The .iO Chair is embedded with a grid of pressure sensors in its seat and can analyze how someone sits — perhaps they’re leaning back, shifting, or perched on the edge — physical cues that often reveal underlying emotional states. This data is interpreted by a large language model housed within the chair, and generates a short dialogue with the sitter, printed in real time on a receipt printer. The result is a playful, affective interaction in which the chair actively responds to the sitter’s presence and emotion, proposing a more intimate and nuanced relationship between human and object.