I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve achieved something and genuinely felt lasting satisfaction.
When AI builds itself
Our progress toward recursive self-improvement, and its implications.
The Friction I Don't Want to Lose
I love learning. And while the friction of solving new problems is increasingly traded for speed, the experience gained by overcoming that friction is as important as ever.
The Paradox of Perfection: When ‘Good Enough’ is Actually Better
Exploring the tension between engineering perfectionism and pragmatic delivery. Discover why striving for the perfect solution often prevents us from shipping valuable improvements and how to find the balance.
The Secret to Emotional Freedom? Feel Everything
I'm addicted to being useful
When I get together with my friends in the industry, I feel a little guilty about how much I love my job. This is a tough time to be a software engineer. The job was less stressful in the late 2010s than it is now, and I sympathize with anyone who is upset about the change. There are a lot of objective reasons to feel bad about work. But despite all that, I’m still having a blast. I enjoy pulling together projects, figuring out difficult bugs, and writing code in general. I like spending time with computers. But what I really love is being useful.
Why Is Everyone In Tech So Sad?
A lot of people seem to be realizing that knowledge work is mostly pointless. AI might give us the pleasure of finding out what happens if an entire class of workers loses faith in their careers.
Three ways boredom can actually be a benefit
A little boredom can be good for you.
AI fatigue is real and nobody talks about it | Siddhant Khare
You're using AI to be more productive. So why are you more exhausted than ever? The paradox every engineer needs to confront.
If you think your profession is dying, it could soon be gone
Younger workers once foresaw the demise of horse-drawn carriages — but anticipating obsolescence can be self-fulfilling
You don’t have to enjoy everything - some things aren’t for you | Respec
If that new game announcement has left you feeling cold, so what?
The Human-in-the-Loop is Tired
On reward functions, dopamine, and what it actually feels like when the code starts writing itself
AI, I tried to love you – Writings and rehearsals by Nathan Schneider
Among my peers who study the cultures and economies surrounding technology, I often find myself more tech-positive than most. On the whole I like computers, like the internet, and like in general the emergent human creativity that these things have enabled and revealed. A source of my appreciation is that I expend a lot of effort on the practice of “slow computing,” which is to say, choosing tools and technical communities that I can feel in right relationship with. I tend to approach new socio-technologies (like gig economies, blockchains, and social media) not from a perspective of why is this so bad? so much as asking how could we do this right?
LLMs and performative productivity
It's worth asking whether LLMs are actually making us more productive at all—and if so, what we might be sacrificing in return.
What happens when AI replaces the parts of work people love?
We’re using AI to move faster. I’m not yet convinced we’re using it to work better.
Re-balancing For You - For You notes
In Making For You pay more attention to your older likes I tried to address a common complaint about For You - that it was too reactive to recent likes. You…