What this is. What it isn't.
Nearfi is a magazine about the next five to twenty years: the films, books and shows that imagine them, the technology actually arriving, and the small decisions that will decide which version we get.
What it is
- A magazine for the near future. Not the year 3000. Your street, your job, your phone, a little way ahead.
- Reviews scored twice. Once as art, once as prophecy. A film can be brilliant and wrong, or clumsy and right.
- A public record. The P(n) Board tracks every prediction in every work we review against the evidence. The Agent Index tracks the AI agents that now act for people. Both show their sources.
- Long-form essays. One idea, followed all the way, starting somewhere unexpected.
- Optimistic on purpose. We look down both branches of every future, then argue for the better one. See the manifesto.
- Always changing. Readings are updated as the world catches up. A review written today can be wrong tomorrow, and we will say so.
What it isn't
- Not hype. We don't sell the future. Nothing here is sponsored, and we don't take money to review or rank anything.
- Not doom. Fear is easy content. We'd rather be useful.
- Not news. We're slow on purpose. We come back to things after the launch-day noise.
- Not a crystal ball. P(n) estimates are reasoned guesses with honest ranges, not promises. Nothing here is financial advice.
- Not space opera. We love it, but if a story can't happen within a lifetime it's out of scope.
- Not finished. If you see something wrong, tell us and we'll fix it in public.
How it's made
Nearfi is researched and written with the help of AI tools, including Anthropic's Claude, and edited by a person. Every factual claim is meant to be checked against a source we link to. Where AI companies are the subject, as in The Agents, Reviewed, we say so and hold them to the same standard as everyone else.
Who's behind it
Nearfi is a project by Matt Alcock, a product leader who builds with AI and thinks a lot about what comes next. More of his work is at mattalcock.com.
The Friday dispatch
One email a week: the new essay, the new review, and one small signal from the present that might turn out to be large.
We only use your email to send the dispatch. Nothing has gone out yet; you'll get the first one when it starts. You can leave any time.