Wearable AI is often designed as always-available, yet continuous availability can conflict with how people work and socialize, creating discomfort around privacy, disruption, and unclear system boundaries. This paper explores episodic use of wearable AI, where assistance is intentionally invoked for short periods of focused activity and set aside when no longer needed, with a form factor that reflects this paradigm of wearing and taking off a device between sessions. We present The Pen, an ear-worn device resembling a pen, for episodic, situated cognitive assistance. The device supports short, on-demand assistance sessions using voice and visual context, with clear start/end boundaries and local processing. We report findings from an exploratory study showing how layered activation boundaries shape users' sense of agency, cognitive flow, and social comfort.

翻译：可穿戴人工智能通常被设计为持续可用，然而这种持续可用性可能与人们的工作和社交方式产生冲突，引发关于隐私、干扰以及系统边界不明确的担忧。本文探讨了可穿戴人工智能的会话式使用模式，即设备在需要时被主动调用以提供短时专注活动辅助，无需时则被搁置，其形态设计体现了在会话间隙穿戴与摘除设备的范式。我们提出了The Pen，一种形似钢笔的耳戴式设备，用于实现会话式、情境化的认知辅助。该设备通过语音和视觉上下文支持短时按需辅助会话，具有明确的开始/结束边界及本地处理能力。我们报告了一项探索性研究的结果，展示了分层激活边界如何影响用户的自主感、认知流状态及社交舒适度。