is a designer working across art direction, graphic design, digital product and creative technology.
Based in San Francisco, CA.
OpenMind2024—26
CUDIS2024—25
HI-FI Studio2023
Aspirations2023
After Dark2022
Slanted2026
ZIO is a machine that explores human-computer interaction between large language models and analog electronics. In late 2022, I was working on my college thesis when ChatGPT came out. Like many others, I started to rethink what a computer could be. At the time, the chat window felt thin for something that powerful. I wanted to see what a conversation with AI would feel like in physical form.
Powered by GPT-4, it houses eight LCD screens, a microphone, a thermal printer, and a set of microcontrollers in one enclosure. You press down the center knob and say whatever you want. After a short pause, ZIO talks back, with the reply also showing on screens and printing on receipt paper. The color knobs are wired in analog, shifting current across the red, green, and blue backlights of the LCD screens.
Process
Looking back, ZIO turned out to be an early prototype of what voice mode in AI models would later become. The GPT-4 model that powered it in 2023 has since been replaced by far more capable ones. Yet most of the time, we still meet them the same way through a chat window on a phone or laptop. ZIO was one early experiment, but the design questions remain: What should human-computer interaction look like now?
