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  1. Reflecting
  • reflecting

  • Essays I have written, either to explore ideas or as a learning exercise.

Reflecting

The importance of writing in the age of AI

Writing is even more important in the age of AI. The best time to start is ten years ago. The second best time is now.

Jun 19, 2025

The importance of precise language in describing Artificial Intelligence

We must use more precise language when writing about artificial intelligence.

Jun 15, 2025

Notes on science, creativity and meaning

Some phenomenological truths lie beyond science’s current reach, and they provide meaning to life

Jun 10, 2025

What in me is dark, Illumine. How Milton summoned the wrong muse

William Blake thought that John Milton was of the Devil’s Party without knowing it. I’ve worked out why. Milton was possessed by Satan.

Jun 8, 2025

James Cameron is confused about copyright and AI

James Cameron thinks it doesn’t matter if AI models are trained on copyrighted content. I strongly disagree.

Jun 3, 2025

June will be a month of posting every day

I am challenging myself to post something to this website every day in June.

Jun 1, 2025

On being successful

Let’s not spoil our lives by using the US-centric definition of success. We need to keep in mind what makes us European.

Apr 13, 2025

Q1 2025 quarterly reflection

I’ve been doing a lot of code creation with AI this quarter, in a sort of structured vibe-coding way. I love it!

Apr 2, 2025

Q4 2024 quarterly reflection

Thoughts about my personal progress during the last quarter, and things I want to do this quarter.

Jan 12, 2025

Q3 2024 quarterly reflection

Thoughts about my personal progress, goals and changes I want to make

Oct 3, 2024

Update, memory

Musings on note books and a failed experiment using ChatGPT to record stuff

Sep 11, 2024

Learning by writing essays

Why writing essays is a great way to study and learn

Sep 8, 2024

Thinking about coconuts

Why are coconuts so big? Why do they have water in them? Are they a nut or a fruit? What is the white stuff for? Did dinosaurs eat coconuts?

Aug 12, 2024

On misremembering and AI hallucinations

Does generative AI really understand things? I used to think not, now I’m not so sure

Jul 10, 2024

Self-prompting — leveraging your mental cockney builder

We use prompting techniques with AI. We can also use them on ourselves

Jul 6, 2024

The WEIRD bias in generative AI responses

“The responses from generative AI depend on their training data. That data is biased, so the responses are biased.”

Jul 5, 2024

We need to talk about your information diet

In this essay I look at how we have been programmed by evolution to enjoy cute kitten pictures on Instagram and dumb rage-bait videos on Twitter. We are making ourselves…

Feb 23, 2024

Gods of the visual essay

Here I list some of the people that I think write the most inspiring visual essays

Nov 29, 2023

Giordano Bruno and Renaissance Magic

Giordano Bruno is a fascinating character from history. I did a talk about him.

Nov 9, 2023

How I finally got the habit of productive note taking

For many years I tried to get the habit of regular note taking, but it was only once I started to write research notes for clients that I understood how to do it properly.

May 17, 2023

AI is coming for your job

How to survive the coming AI job apocalypse

May 10, 2023

The Moral Machine - Could AI Outshine Us in Ethical Decision-Making?

Philosophers have been debating about ethics since philosophy began, surely they can provide a set of rules for AI to follow? Let’s investigate…

May 5, 2023

Discussion about Swarm Intelligence

A discussion about Swarm Intelligence — from what it is to terraforming Mars with nano bots.

Mar 30, 2023

Why I am an atheist

Working out why you believe the things you do is important

Jul 1, 2017
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