Exploring Creepy Futures: Reflecting on the Value of Creepiness as Design Fiction
Argenis Ramírez Gómez, Katarzyna Stawarz · Electronic workshops in computing · 2025
What can designers learn from living in a Creepy Future? This paper presents a vision of the future drawn by a fictional autoethnography study imagining and living with fictional devices. Using an imaginary creepy device as a starting point, this paper reflects on the value of imagining Creepy Futures. We start evoking a future in which devices are designed with creepiness as a normative design feature with the description of the Catonator – a device that creates a nanorobotic twin of your pet when you are abroad. Using Design Fiction and a visual representation created with generative AI, we present insights on reflecting on a week of living with the fictional device. Through are flection of our interpretation as the designer and end-user, we discuss the value of designing creepiness as a resource for responsible futures.