The Journey
Most posts here are ad hoc: what I learned building with AI that week, some philosophy, a writing lesson, something I came across.
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Own your AI skill files, or your job becomes one
A skill file is your judgement, written down and executable. Who owns the repo decides whether that's an asset or an extraction.
Soft Systems Methodology explained: Checkland's 1969 method for AI briefs nobody agrees on
Most AI projects fail on the brief, not the model: six people nod at one sentence and mean four different projects. Soft Systems Methodology, built at Lancaster from 1969 for exactly that, in plain English: rich pictures, root definitions, CATWOE, and how to run it on the next thing on your roadmap.
80% of AI projects fail on the problem, not the model: Soft Systems Methodology
More than 80% of AI projects fail, and RAND's leading root cause is not the technology: nobody agreed what problem was being solved. Soft Systems Methodology, built at Lancaster from 1969 for exactly that failure, gives you a way to surface the disagreement in an afternoon instead of a year.
Opus 5 verbosity: where I wanted three sentences, I got Proust
I judge AI models by how often they make me swear. Opus 5 turned swearing into punctuation, and the reason is more interesting than I first thought.
Bernardo Kastrup's cosmic mind has no plan: what analytic idealism actually claims
The most rigorous idealist alive gives the non-duality audience far less than they want: a universal consciousness that is instinctive, has no plan, and is not looking back at you. What he actually claims, why he says it cannot be proven, and the one part that survives whoever turns out to be right.
My AI Agents Kept Losing My Work. The Fix Is Older Than Computers.
Seventeen finished pieces of work were invisible to my own tracking system, and the cause wasn't effort or memory. A Berkeley talk gave me the name for what fixed it: an ontology. Here's the version that fits a one-person company.
The Data Said Nobody's Buying AI. Turns Out I Was Selling the Wrong Thing.
Last week I showed the demand numbers for AI consultancy are dire. This week a veteran operator explained the part I missed: the demand isn't dead, it's mute. Nobody buys AI. They buy outcomes, told concretely enough to defend to a board.
Garry Tan Just Described My Setup. Then I Noticed What He Left Out.
The YC president gave a talk describing, almost item for item, the AI system I already run. The validation lasted about ten minutes. Then I noticed the word neither of us was saying.
I Leaked an API Key and It Turned My Own Domain Into a Phishing Weapon
I got phished from my own verified domain, using an API key I'd leaked myself: what actually leaked, how fast it happened, and what I changed.
Everyone's selling AI consultancy. The data says nobody's buying.
A $1,000-an-hour AI consultancy playbook is doing the rounds. The demand data, and a friend who sells everything except this, disagree.
A friend said it was a business. I decided it was not, and built it anyway.
A friend said it should be a business. I assessed it honestly, decided it was not, and built it anyway because it still needed to exist.
You Are Not the House You Built
The third in a series. The performed self is a building you put up because contact with the real one was unbearable. Stopping it from falling down is why you are so tired.
If It Makes You Angry, It Isn't Yours
Anthony de Mello said you know someone has been brainwashed because they get angry when you challenge their beliefs. Social media and AI have made the condition almost universal.
Contact Is the Test
Self-awareness that doesn't produce contact with other people has gone bad. Dostoevsky figured this out in 1864.