This research explores how a nihilistic approach to the development of personal assistants can problematize the ways these technologies are being brought to market by using the concept of the useless machine. The research is organized around the creation of four prototypes: SAD Blender, Home Hub, Calendar Creep, Fortune Tasker, and a personal web server named Punchy. Each of these prototypes seek to critique the current corporate agenda of productivity, efficiency, and consumption, by creating machines that have no utilitarian function. This work investigates and defines useless machines in the contemporary context of personal assistants, and documents the development of each of the prototypes and server. Overall the research shows that while its not possible to completely divorce these devices from their parent corporations, they do serve as an important vehicle to explore the changing landscape of ubiquity, and our shifting ability to work and live with these connected objects

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• http://vimeo.com/264871620