Writing
Thoughts on finance, economics, technology and philosophy, going back to 2016.
InteractiveHistory shows jobs are lost from automation
How automation has changed the share of our lives spent working — and where we could spend the leisure time created by AI. With interactive charts and a productivity simulator.
Fragility & Efficiency
I am increasingly worried about the tradeoff between robustness and efficiency of systems and what the effect of this will be on our society. This is a continuation from my thoughts on Fragility and Boundary Conditions E…
Competition and Slack
I am flying long distance for the first time in a long time — this time to the US for a festival. My experience with my flight being canceled made me reflect on how airlines work and the dynamics of the airline industry…
Existential AI risk 101
Why to take existential AI risk seriously
GPT-5
A short story written by GPT-4
Fragility & Boundary Conditions
I’ve had some thoughts over the last few months that felt very disparate, but suddenly came crashing together and unlocked a new insight, connecting how rain behaves to how startups fail. In short: it’s easy to make your startup fragile without intending to. If you are a VC-backed startup with grand ambitions, you may not want to, or be able to avoid this, but you should make sure that those decisions are intentional.
Thoughts on the future of AI
A few frameworks to think about the models that will change the future and the companies that will be built on and around them.
Principled hypocrisy
Moving towards more optimal levels of guilt and morality
InteractiveFind out when you'll die and add it to your calendar
Live every day knowing if it's your last
Will 5G fry your brain in its skull like a mushy grey burrito?
Short answer: No
2 dark patterns in business
Dark patterns in business
Let’s stop pretending. Automation will annihilate jobs and this is goddamn fantastic!
The creator of jobs is innovation and the destroyer of jobs is automation — there is no natural reason for these to balance each other out
Ideas 2017
A collection of ideas I’ve had and found amusing enough to write down.
InteractivePausing ageing at 70: Better than a cure for cancer
If we stopped ageing at 70 years old, we could live longer than if we stopped violence, accidents, cancer and heart disease combined.
When breath becomes air
Brewing with a Chemex probably seems like a complicated, time-consuming ordeal, but once you get used to the process, it becomes a soothing ritual that's worth the effort every time.
Why don’t shares expire?
So I’ve been thinking a lot about the way that we as a society currently structure ownership of companies. Specifically about how we decide what to do and what to optimise for at the company level.
I missed a lot of things
My dad died in August this year from skin cancer.
Most things sound blue-green
Scientific Synaesthesia — converting sound to colour
What the weather sounds like
75 years of weather in 15 seconds of sound