The Hottest Anti-AI Gadget Is a Cyberdeck

Ube Boobey’s bedroom is slightly messy after a trip to Morocco, but her cyberdeck glistens among the clutter. The homemade computer is located inside a clamshell purse, covered in swirly gold accents and filled with pearls, with some makeup and fake moss tucked beneath the keyboard. The 22-year-old, who’s based in London and has worked as a model, designed it to look like a fantastical mermaid’s laptop that just washed ashore.

The TikTok creator, whose real name is Annike Tan, unveiled her very first build in March with a video partially captioned “fuck it. cunty cyberdeck.” Since that post, over 32 million viewers have watched her videos about DIY tech projects; it’s one data point among many that highlights a renewed interest in cyberdecks, especially among women eager to share their creations online.

These cyberdecks are more than just a trendy craft project going viral on social media. The DIY gadget is, in part, a rejection of our current moment, dominated by the predictable flatness of generative AI and minimalist, mass-produced devices. “What we should do with cyberdecks is gatekeep them from AI and megacorp,” Tan says in a TikTok video with nearly 4 million views.

The concept of a cyberdeck is decades old, but the idea has always had an antiestablishment bent. In William Gibson’s Neuromancer, an influential sci-fi novel released in 1984, the protagonist is a data thief who uses his deck to hack big corporations. Historically, decks have resembled heavy-duty, utilitarian devices housed in rugged cases. What sets Tan’s cyberdeck apart is its aesthetic. Inside her refurbished clamshell purse is a Raspberry Pi single-board computer with a small keyboard and screen. “I've not seen anyone do a hyper-femme one before,” she says.

To make her mermaid cyberdeck less reliant on internet access, she has transferred heaps of files from her PC, uploading songs, books, maps, and Wikipedia articles directly onto the device. Other creators, like Ling Lu and Brianna, have been inspired to create their own whimsical gadgets, from audio journals to mini-game consoles housed in donut boxes.

These makers aren’t motivated to replace their smartphones. Instead, they seek a joyful escape into an alternate universe of homemade tech. As generative AI threatens to alienate us from the process of making, Tan’s cyberdeck emphasizes personal expression and manual effort. “Cyberdecks are a very good, entry-level point into becoming a bit more tech literate,” Tan concludes.