Matt Webb created an AI-powered poem clock as an exploration in both materials and Chat-GPT. It’s now a product you can back on Kickstarter.

We speak with Matt about embodied sketching, product lessons from Little Printer, our to use Pathfinding to make decisions, and lessons on how to think about AI.

This clock on your shelf, with e-paper display / Spins poems profound, in a whimsical way

• LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE:
  
  
• Apple Podcasts
  
  
• Spotify
  

Show notes & links

• About Matt Webb, who can be found on Interconnected and Acts Not Facts
  
  
• London industrial design studio Approach
  
  
• Tom Armitage, freelance technologist, designer & writer
  
  
• Bryan Boyer and Matter Battle
  
  
• Poem/1 started life as a Chat-GPT and e-ink hack in March 2023, then an exploration in time happened, then about 6-8 months of development leading to a Kickstarter
  
  
• Kickstarter Poem/1: AI rhyming clock
  
  
• From FastCo: This whimsical clock is the playful gadget AI needs right now.
  

Sponsored by:

Expedition Works

Hi. We’re a full–service design cooperative – let’s work together to make your journey with a purpose successful.

Poem/1 courtesy of Matt Webb

Poem/1 courtesy of Matt Webb
Poem/1 courtesy of Matt Webb

“Because of this AI thing, we don’t understand what it is. We don’t understand what the possibilities are, and the only way you can figure that out is to roll your sleeves up. There’s something about making things real, which means that you put them in a different place in your head, and you start treating them as tools to make more real things. When they exist just as sketches, you don’t do that. So making things real, like incrementally carries your imagination further.

Poem/1 courtesy of Matt Webb

“And there’s nothing wrong with gags, right? I’m making this gag clock, right. Which talks in, ridiculous poems, that sounds like a LinkedIn influencer, like a tiny, tiny Sam Altman telling me to like, go for it. And I’m using planetary compute to do it. And I love the absurdity, right. It really. It really tickles me.”

Poem/1 courtesy of Matt Webb

Poem/1 courtesy of Matt Webb
Poem/1 courtesy of Matt Webb

“The point is that. We’re all sitting there writing strategy, setting policy, asking for code, talking through projects with ChatGPT, and it’s being upbeat and positive, and that is, that is going to be having an effect on us. And we should be having a conversation about how much we care about that, especially outside California. Because these aren’t necessarily the same values of every state and every country and what happens then is people will start feeling distanced from the technology we’re using every day. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing I’m just saying it would be good to be having this conversation out loud and you know it’s weird, right?”

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