Ben Smith
Systems Thinker · Tinkerer
The Reps
I pointed a stack of subagents at a year of my own AI coding history, looking for the trap that keeps stalling my projects. They found it five times over. They also found what separated the projects I rescued from the ones I didn't, and it was the one step I couldn't hand to a model.
The Unbuilt Game
I spent a couple of weeks designing a real-time strategy game around a single bet. The sim told me the bet was too small to feel, and that turned out to be the most useful thing it could have said.
The Will Problem
Twelve years of writing software, two of working alongside AI. The models are obviously intelligent. I don't think they're conscious, and the people who actually study this keep landing on the same reason I did.
The CIA's Analytical Playbook Works Better on AI Than on Analysts
The CIA spent 70 years building structured techniques to fix broken human reasoning. They fix something different in AI, and they fix it more completely.
The Signal: Craft in the Age of Slop
Websites are easy to make now. That's the problem.