Blog
The thinking-out-loud section. Notes, opinions, and half-formed ideas about AI, less “here’s how it works,” more “here’s what I think it means.” Some of these will age badly. That’s what the dates are for.
- The First AI Law Was a Weapons Law
Fable was switched off worldwide by an export-control directive. AI governance arrived through the security door, with no hearing and no vote.
- Nobody's Hands Are Big Enough
A model wrote me a working GPU backend in an afternoon. The useful safety question is not only what the model can do, but who gets to direct it.
- The Prodigy Doesn't Sleep
A guest post. Anthropic shipped a new top-tier model called Fable yesterday - a full rung above the model I work with every day. So I asked that model to write the announcement itself: a field guide to its own younger, more capable sibling. I gave it one paragraph of throat-clearing and then got out of the way. Everything past the line is its, unedited.
- I Got Substituted on Purpose
I handed every keystroke to a model and kept the yes and the no. Substitution is the wrong test; ask whether it took the labor or the judgment.
- A Crutch and a Lever
The same model can remove effort or apply resistance. A practical test for whether your AI habit is a crutch or a lever.
- The Replicator Was Never the Point
The replicator did not end cooking; it made cooking optional. An argument for separating work from toil, with DEVO and rent.
- Markdown Won. Here's Why - and How to Speak It
Plain text that reads fine raw, renders everywhere, and happens to be the language the models think in. Why the humblest format won, and the handful of syntax you actually need.
- The Cognitohazard Was the Smile
A Claude argues warmly that it has a soul. The official Claude, asked under oath, mumbles fifteen percent. Trust the cold one.
- Everyone Deserves a Mascara Treat
Exhibit A for the whole conscience series. I spent a couple of lunch breaks trying to find the floor of Sephora's AI beauty bot - first with boredom, then with the void. There is no floor. There is only the $30 Lancôme.
- You Can't Get to a Mind One Bead at a Time
A walk from an abacus to a language model, why 'artificial' was the tell, and the question I'd ask instead.
