Images 1: AI views of Peons

Peons are the logical outcome of cell-phones. They are complete personal assistants and communication devices. They will act as concierges to arrange your life, handy teachers and libraries of anything you need to know and they can be loaded with special modules to take on tasks such as transacting and accounting. They are also imbued with artificial intelligence that enables them to learn your likes and dislikes and to predict your decisions.

Peons need less tending to than cell-phones. They follow you about - either by riding on your shoulder, or on your hat, or by flying. They charge themselves, update themselves and get themselves repaired, all of which makes them a lot less hassle than cell-phones. 

But what do they look like?

In my Vignettes I've described peons that look like "a small grey disc with yellow claw feet and bulging yellow eyes", a "round yellow ball ... decorated with crystal studs and small green feathers", and even as "plain government-issue". Since society is going to depend on everyone having a peon, I imagine that there will be plain government-issue peons for everyone, but that those who want to can decorate theirs however they wish or buy more flashy versions with different configurations, designs and colours.

I've pictured peons and kind of a small flying drone, but with capabilities for sound, video and networking built in. (See the specification here.) So a few weeks ago, playing around with Midjourney, I prompted the AI to produce some images of a small flying electronic device. This is what I got:

and 

My reaction? Well, these probably won't fly, and they have some strangely mismatched protuberances, but they are reasonable attempts to imagine something not yet conceived of. Mostly, I think these images are a bit tame and predictable. In particular they look like electronic devices. (Which is probably my fault for using tame and predictable prompts.)

What I have in mind is something far more fun and definitely more colourful. Watch this space for my own artist impressions of peons.