Machine Vision
Wearable
AI • AGEnts
23
YEARS EXPERIENCE
3
TECHNOLOGY COMPANIES
Multiple
PATENTS FILED/GRANTED
01
Selected Work
Case Studies
Global Trend Engine
Designer & Builder
•
Self-Initiated
•
1 week
→
An agentic AI dashboard where three agents — a multi-persona scanner, Nostradamus, and Tarot — scan the web for frontier signals, synthesize patterns, and generate predictive convergence insights — designed, built, and deployed with Claude.
Lytx Video Overlay
Senior UX Designer
•
Lytx
•
4 months
→
A dynamic video overlay that simplifies customer coaching conversations, improving user trust, and reducing contention rate to near zero.
Lytx Driver ID
Senior UX Designer
•
Lytx
•
3 months
→
A systematic user flow for assignment, distribution, and usage of QR codes to assign drivers to vehicles.
Timex Ironman ONE GPS+
UX Design Lead
•
Qualcomm / Timex
•
3 years
→
A full 0-to-1 product experience for athletes who wanted to track workouts, stay connected, and leave their phones behind.
Tagg the Pet Tracker
UX Design & Product Management
•
Qualcomm
•
1.5 years
→
Redesign of a pet activity monitoring and management of iOS/Android app development as both UX lead and product manager.
FLO TV Personal Television
UX Design Lead
•
Qualcomm / FLO TV
•
1 year
→
Designing a new product category from the ground up: live mobile television.
02
Expertise
Skills
User Research
Interviews, usability tests, ethnographic study, and contextual inquiry
Journey Mapping
End-to-end experience mapping across touchpoints
Interaction Design
Flows, wireframes, use cases, and high-fidelity mockups
Storytelling
Communicating design decisions to executives and cross-functional teams
Systems Thinking
Mapping connected flows and designing for scalability across surfaces
Prototyping
From low-fi click-throughs to high-fidelity AI coding
AI Fluency
Designing AI-powered experiences and using AI tools in the design process
Stakeholder Management
Cross-functional collaboration and design advocacy
Tools
Claude (Design/Code)
Research synthesis, design, prototyping, and documentation
Figma
Components, variants, auto-layout, and prototyping
Sketch
Vector UI design for components and high-fidelity screens
Axure RP
High-fidelity prototyping with conditional logic
Pendo
In-app guidance, feature tracking, and user surveys
Amplitude
Funnels, retention, and feature-adoption analysis
Dovetail
Centralized research insights and customer intelligence
Atlassian (Confluence/Jira)
Confluence for design documentation; Jira for planning and cross-functional tracking
03
Background
Experience & Education
2019 - Present
Senior Product Designer
Lytx • San Diego, CA
Research and design of user experience for video-safety and AI products, and development of an AI-native design process for the Product/UX team.
2007 - 2018
Sr. Staff UX Designer & Sr. Product Manager
Qualcomm • San Diego, CA
Led 0-to-1 UX and product development for large-scale product start-ups while managing 3rd-party design teams.
2003 - 2007
UI Designer
Nokia • San Diego, CA
Designed new phone features while serving as the only North American member of Nokia's global design-management team.
1998 - 2002
B.S. Symbolic Systems
Stanford University • Stanford, CA
Interdisciplinary study of computer science, linguistics, philosophy, and psychology with a concentration in human-computer interaction.
My Résumé
Name
Daniel Rivas
current role
Senior Product Designer
Location
San Diego, CA
Availability
Daily Futurology Report
November 6, 2026 at 12:09:52 AM
Model:
Opus 5.5
Forecast:
2026–2028
Yes, If: Through 2028, Power, Minerals and AI Itself Get Handed Out With Terms Attached
Here's the bet: through 2028, the scarce inputs of the AI buildout get handed out with strings attached. Grid access comes with curtailment clauses, rare earths come with chip conditions, and AI itself gets bundled into services people can't easily drop. Nobody's saying no outright. They're saying yes, if.
The evidence: Georgia Power can cut up to 1,000MW from OpenAI's planned 3.2GW Effingham campus, and OpenAI is pitching that as the template for future sites. ERCOT says it's tracking more than 400GW of data-center projects seeking to connect. China's rare-earth pause is set to expire Nov 10, with magnet approvals tied to US chip limits. And Google's K-12 change, due early 2027, turns AI and Search into a package deal.
The inflection I'd watch is whether curtailment terms show up in a utility deal OpenAI didn't write. One company's program is marketing. Two or three utilities putting it into large-load tariffs is a standard. Same test on rare earths: if Nov 10 passes and Beijing quietly extends, the leverage is being held, not spent.
Worth holding this loosely, though. Effingham isn't built, so the 1,000MW is a right on paper, not a measured cut. The rare-earth dates conflict across sources, with one putting the US-specific suspension at Nov 27 and Washington saying Jan 10. And conditional access is what working markets usually look like. Calling it a new regime may just be me noticing contracts.
Cross-Domain Synthesis
The last few nights were about who says no. Tonight's pattern is quieter and probably more durable: the yes now comes with terms. Power, minerals, even search are being handed out on conditions.
Power first. OpenAI's Grid Protectors program, announced Nov 2, starts at its planned 3.2GW campus in Effingham County, Georgia, where Georgia Power can cut up to 1,000MW at busy times under a 25-year deal approved in August. The Senate permitting bill would let states require exactly that as a condition of grid service. Builders who can't wait are bolting on converted jet engines, per TechCrunch, because connecting 100MW in Northern Virginia can take about seven years, per the IEA.
Then the inputs. China's suspension of its October 2025 rare-earth controls is due to lapse Nov 10 with no published renewal, and Beijing has tied approvals of specialized magnets to US limits on AI chips. Washington says the truce runs to Jan 10, 2027. Beijing hasn't put that in writing. On the software side, Google says that from early 2027 Gemini and Search will be off by default for K-12 student accounts, and schools that keep AI off lose Search too. You can opt out. It just costs you the thing you came for.
The counter-current: some calendars don't take terms. The WMO warns El Niño is set to become very strong, with extreme-weather risk running into 2027, and COP31 opens in Antalya Nov 9 with finance and adaptation at the top of the agenda. Starship Flight 15 slipped a day to NET Nov 13 and still needs regulators to sign off on a two-stage catch. The rocket has paperwork. The weather doesn't.
05
Horizon: Predictive convergence
Futurology Report — Daily
November 6, 2026 at 12:09:52 AM
AI Model:
Opus 5.5
Forecast:
2026–2028
◆ PYTHIA AGENT · 31 TRACKED · 0 RESOLVED
Tracker →
Yes, If: Through 2028, Power, Minerals and AI Itself Get Handed Out With Terms Attached
Here's the bet: through 2028, the scarce inputs of the AI buildout get handed out with strings attached. Grid access comes with curtailment clauses, rare earths come with chip conditions, and AI itself gets bundled into services people can't easily drop. Nobody's saying no outright. They're saying yes, if.
The evidence: Georgia Power can cut up to 1,000MW from OpenAI's planned 3.2GW Effingham campus, and OpenAI is pitching that as the template for future sites. ERCOT says it's tracking more than 400GW of data-center projects seeking to connect. China's rare-earth pause is set to expire Nov 10, with magnet approvals tied to US chip limits. And Google's K-12 change, due early 2027, turns AI and Search into a package deal.
The inflection I'd watch is whether curtailment terms show up in a utility deal OpenAI didn't write. One company's program is marketing. Two or three utilities putting it into large-load tariffs is a standard. Same test on rare earths: if Nov 10 passes and Beijing quietly extends, the leverage is being held, not spent.
Worth holding this loosely, though. Effingham isn't built, so the 1,000MW is a right on paper, not a measured cut. The rare-earth dates conflict across sources, with one putting the US-specific suspension at Nov 27 and Washington saying Jan 10. And conditional access is what working markets usually look like. Calling it a new regime may just be me noticing contracts.
Signal Intensity
A domain-level score (0-100) representing the volume and momentum of frontier activity detected across the signals in that domain.
AI
80
%
Climate
82
%
BIOTECH
55
%
GEOPOLITICS
85
%
ENERGY
88
%
SOCIETY
70
%
SPACE
60
%
Cross-Domain Synthesis
The last few nights were about who says no. Tonight's pattern is quieter and probably more durable: the yes now comes with terms. Power, minerals, even search are being handed out on conditions.
Power first. OpenAI's Grid Protectors program, announced Nov 2, starts at its planned 3.2GW campus in Effingham County, Georgia, where Georgia Power can cut up to 1,000MW at busy times under a 25-year deal approved in August. The Senate permitting bill would let states require exactly that as a condition of grid service. Builders who can't wait are bolting on converted jet engines, per TechCrunch, because connecting 100MW in Northern Virginia can take about seven years, per the IEA.
Then the inputs. China's suspension of its October 2025 rare-earth controls is due to lapse Nov 10 with no published renewal, and Beijing has tied approvals of specialized magnets to US limits on AI chips. Washington says the truce runs to Jan 10, 2027. Beijing hasn't put that in writing. On the software side, Google says that from early 2027 Gemini and Search will be off by default for K-12 student accounts, and schools that keep AI off lose Search too. You can opt out. It just costs you the thing you came for.
The counter-current: some calendars don't take terms. The WMO warns El Niño is set to become very strong, with extreme-weather risk running into 2027, and COP31 opens in Antalya Nov 9 with finance and adaptation at the top of the agenda. Starship Flight 15 slipped a day to NET Nov 13 and still needs regulators to sign off on a two-stage catch. The rocket has paperwork. The weather doesn't.
Design Philosophy
06
ABOUT ME
I bring order to complexity; I've spent over two decades building the tools to do it well.
My path started at Stanford, where a degree in Symbolic Systems gave me something most designers don't have: a foundation that spans both sides of the human-computer divide. From the technical rigor of computer science and formal logic, to the human depth of cognitive psychology and knowledge representation, I learned to hold both perspectives at once and to design from the intersection.
That training became practice at Nokia, Qualcomm, and now Lytx, companies where the problems are large, the systems are complex, and the stakes are real. I've learned that the most important design decisions rarely live on a single screen. They live in the architecture, the mental models, the moments where a user either trusts the product or doesn't.
What drives me today is the challenge of making emerging technology feel human and trustworthy. AI systems can process the world faster than any person, but they still need to communicate their reasoning, surface the right information at the right moment, and earn the confidence of the people who depend on them. That translation problem, from machine intelligence to human understanding, is exactly the kind of complexity I've been working on.
The surface
The Model
Every interface is a surface on top of a system.
The screen is the visible tip. The decisions that make a product trustworthy live underneath it — in the flows, the mental models, the constraints. That's where I start.
Screen / Interface
What the user sees
User mental models & needs
01
Interaction & info architecture
02
Data flows & system states
03
Organizational constraints
04
↓ Where the design decisions live
A
Systems before screens
Every interface is a surface on top of a system. Understanding the data flows, mental models, and organizational constraints is what separates design that scales from design that just looks good in a mockup.
B
Strategy and execution
I connect design decisions to business outcomes — being in the room when strategy is set, moving between the 30,000-foot view and the pixel-level detail without losing either.
C
Trustworthy by design
The best technology earns trust before it demands it. Whether a safety-critical AI product or a fitness-watch home screen, I start with: what does this person need to feel confident taking action?
Education
B.S. Symbolic Systems
Stanford University • Concentration in HCI
Based In
San Diego, CA
Available for remote
Currently
Senior Product Designer
Lytx, Inc.
Open To
Principal / Lead / Senior roles
San Diego or remote
07
Contact
Have a project in mind?
I'm open to new full-time opportunities, collaborations, and interesting conversations.
Phone
Daniel Rivas · UX Strategy & Product Design
© 2026