A few weeks ago, a friend asked me what I thought about Eliezer Yudkowsky’s views on AI. I said I was skeptical, and he seemed fearmonger-y in interviews, but that I’d check out his book and share my thoughts. There was a backlog at the library, but I just finished listening to If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky & Nate Soares. It was an unsettling book. I don’t completely agree with the core premise, but I feel like I can understand his perspective a little more. The audiobook was a scant 6 hours long. If you’ve got the time and you can borrow it from your library, I’d recommend giving it a listen. I’d love to talk about it more. ...
Technical Career Planning: Growth, Strategy, and Building for the Future
I had someone reach out to me with the following questions: I would value your perspective on: Technical Growth: How to transition from feature development to architectural thinking (CI/CD, Cloud Infrastructure, Scalability). Career Strategy: Advice on positioning myself for opportunities (perhaps in the US market) where I can solve more complex engineering problems. The Bigger Picture: Given my goal to eventually build an IT firm here in Ghana, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what technical foundations I need to master now to lead engineering teams in the future. ...
Escaping Enshittification: Building Better Online Communities with Discourse
I’ve gotten away from writing regularly, but I’m trying to get back to it. I flew out to Boston for work last week, and on the flight there I read “Enshittification” by Cory Doctorow. I enjoyed it and it sort of resonated with me—all these platforms that we use every day are just bad. I see more ads than updates from friends. Even when the posts are from humans, they feel like they’re gaming the system. They’re writing things that are trying to get views rather than trying to connect with people. So yeah, I don’t really enjoy social media much anymore. ...