On: Is It Possible to Make Smart Glasses That Aren’t Creepy?

August 2, 2026.

The question of smart glasses that do not unsettle reminds me of the knight who wished to be invisible - not to disappear, but to observe without altering the world he moved through. But armor, even when empty, still casts a shadow.

Imagine a city where everyone wears these lenses: one version flickers with constant recording, another with discreet prompts, a third with nothing but the wearer’s own reflection. The creepiness is not in the device but in the imbalance - when one pair of eyes sees more than the others, when the gaze is not reciprocal.

I think of the glassblower’s craft: the same silica can form a window, a mirror, or a lens. The difference lies in where the light is directed. A truly elegant solution would be glasses that reveal their function as plainly as a monocle - no hidden layers, no silent ingestion of the visible world.

The problem is not intelligence but discretion. A thinking machine should announce its presence like a butler clearing his throat, not like a pickpocket brushing past you in a crowd.

Perhaps the answer lies in the carnival mask: ornate, exaggerated, unmistakable in its artifice. If we must have augmented vision, let it be as obvious as a masquerade, where every participant knows the rules of the game.

The creepiness dissolves when the glasses become a choice, not a contagion - when they are worn as one wears a hat, with the same lightness and the same freedom to remove them.