By: Thomas Stahura
Maybe by 2027, the phrase “off the record” will sound as retro as “be kind, rewind.” Because — in this future — the moment you walk into any room with a Wi-Fi signal, a silent stenographer the size of a hockey puck would be recording everything and drafting the footnotes of your life.
Even though our smartphones are already eavesdropping on half our conversations, they were never meant to surveil us 24/7. Phones are battery bound, thermally throttled, and built for communication with other humans, not to run AI models.
These new AI devices may turn out like mainframes for the home: 8 TB NVMe, 128GB VRAM, fully tethered, and a fan that sounds like a white-noise machine.
In actuality though, these devices would likely take the shape of a puck-sized microphone or a pair of AI glasses. Like the much anticipated OpenAIxJony Ive collab or Mark Zuckerberg’s sunglasses. It's clear one of the battlegrounds in AI hardware is who owns the next always-recording device.
And for the record, many startups are breaking into this industry as well. Such as Brilliant Labs with its open-source Halo glasses, Bee's ambient wristband (acquired by Amazon), and Avi Schiffmann's Friend pendant.
Imagine never forgetting a promise to your partner, a precious moment with your kid, your best friend's great grandmother, or the name of that person you met at a conference three years ago. For aging parents, it’s a safety net. For those with ADHD, it’s an external executive function. And for working professionals, it's a useful tool. The upside, ideally, is a life with no lost details, a searchable, verifiable personal history.
But obviously there are some major downsides here. The same tool that helps someone remember a birthday can be used to weaponize a misspoken comment in a divorce proceeding. A boss can rewind the sarcasm from this week’s all-hands. Every verbal slip-up, every late-night rant, every moment of vulnerability becomes a permanent, admissible exhibit in the court of public or private opinion.
The legal system seems unprepared for this. This device in California, where one-party audio recording consent is fine, becomes a misdemeanor the moment you take a call with a colleague in Washington. How does GDPR’s “Right to be Forgotten” square with a device built for total, immutable recall? We’re already seeing the canary in the coal mine with AI notetakers like Otter and Fireflies, who have taken over Zoom calls and normalized the act of recording every professional interaction. Which is not bad per se.
It seems the social etiquette is being rewritten. Mostly by young ambitious founders like Roy Lee, who want us all to “cheat on everything” with Clueley. A provocative idea validating the “All press is good press” proverb on X, and again, could very well happen. I do find it a little ironic how Roy’s cheating scandal spawned a PR-fueled startup, while Andy Byron’s affair turned him from AI startup CEO to cautionary tale in real time. Two diverging case studies in how society reacts to social media.
Regardless, if perfect recall becomes universal, the only real defense is to act as though you're already being watched. Whether it's Big tech or the NSA… Or just use a VPN and run AI models locally.
P.S. If you have any questions or just want to talk about AI, email me! thomas@ascend.vc