Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, Pieter Bruegel the Elder X Gemini AI
And it is almost entirely about AI. Written by humans. Not only fans, but critical thoughts, angles and ideas. From me. From others. Good words. Best words. Beast words.
This is 418 - I'm A Teapot, a newsletter about #Engineering #Digital #Ideas and today I would like to share with you:
ENGINEERING - The best argued essay on the risks of AI use I read so far. Replace lingo with your domain's and its insights apply way beyond software engineering. Key quote: "One reason that the atrophy of coding skills is concerning is the "paradox of supervision" ... effectively using Claude requires supervision, and supervising Claude requires the very coding skills that may atrophy from AI overuse.": Agentic Coding is a Trap.
This makes you wonder, are the superstars of the scene ascending to higher planes of knowledge and productivity, or are they caving in, when Simon Willison sees Vibe Coding and Agentic Engineering converge: Vibe Coding and Agentic Engineering are Getting Close.
NASA Astronaut drifting in space, NASA
DIGITAL - What a wild time to be alive. Once you dive in, it's easy to drift, outpaced by superhuman speed. The antidote is slowing down and taking agency back, great thought piece curtesy my colleague Sebastian Küpers: Have you experienced the AI drift?
You owe it to yourself. And your co-workers. This is not about mediocre people cosplaying 10x superstars. It is about putting a technology in its place and to good use: Let it brainstorm, let it edit, let it discover and write things you already know. Let it walk, do not let it drive: How to appear productive in times of AI.
IDEAS - Wow. That was tough. We deserve some fun, a game, about passwords: It's imaginatively called Password Game!
I failed at Roman Numerals. On mobile :P
Playtime is over! A fantastic startup did a crazy thing with AI, click he... na, just kidding, we're done with overexcited for today. Here is a calm camera turning pictures into poems: Poetry camera.
But, you read this far. You seem to like reading. Maybe even on paper. Here is a book. Or better, a review about one, 50 years old. The book, not the review. Still it appears relevant. Helpful to make sense of this technology beyond the hype: The Role of a New Machine.
Quote: "Artificial intelligence takes you away from your own trip. What you want to do is look at the wheels of the machine and if you like them, have fun." Unquote.
Now that you know, you wonder: How to make those expensive af teams faster? Well, Avery Pennarun (Tailscale) has some ideas about making them slower... to make them faster: Every layer of review makes you 10x slower - apenwarr
Now: Just look at the sky. Enjoy the limitless shades of soft blue. And then - Enjoy your tea.
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I'm A What? 418 – I'm A Teapot is a weekly newsletter from and about the world wide web. It revolves broadly around engineering digital ideas, how, what and why to build for the web. Feel free to share, comment and contribute!
This is I'm A Teapot, a weekly newsletter for techy creatives, creative techys and everybody else that enjoys some good reading and does not give an f- about categories. No tech knowledge needed, just a curious mind, pinky promise.
ENGINEERING
You know what made me fall in love with technology? The creativity. The riddles, the puzzles, the mind-benders. Which is why, this week I want to share two tech pieces that are about thinking outside the box and reinventing the rules:
Flowchart showing de-coupling of real and browser time.
Why making your browser time travel is the best way to record videos: Building a camera by lying to your browser about time and a great interactive exploration how Shazam actually works: How the heck does Shazam work?
DIGITAL
With that out of the way, let us dive into AI aigain ;)
Great post by Vitaly Friedman regarding AI giving better responses: Five ways of engineering context for AI Slight addendum from my side, the "thinking" anthromorphization is misleading our reading about things like this. AI "condenses" in the widest sense of the word, it is the high-pass filter of information processing tools.
What a great piece of work: The AI Atlas of Interactions, a must read imho for everyone serious about modelling human and AI-interaction beyond "I want to prompt X." level: The Atlas of AI Interaction Design
IDEAS
Golfing is not rowing - or why it is important to understand what game you are playing, in sport, business and life: Golfing Is Not Rowing
A map of happy people. Explore and feel joy little story by little story: The Pudding Happy Map
Four years ago I wrote a little internal newsletter, about #Engineering #Digital #Ideas as an experiment and to lift everyones spirits during Corona.
I kinda stopped after 52ish issues, not sure why, so, let's go again, this time in a more public setting ;) This weeks contents might be summarized under the label "exploration".
ENGINEERING
Come, take a guided tour of the (leaked) architecture of ClaudeCode: Claude Code Unpacked.
And then follow Twilio going all the way back from 100s of problem children to one superstar: Goodbye Microservices.
DIGITAL
Let's meet Mario Zechner who most politely asks us to "Slow the fuck down!". Great essay around the idea that move fast and break things gets an even worse paradigm than it already is, if AI makes it free, fast and (initially) pain less: Thoughts on slowing the fuck down.
And travel round the world to Craig Mod, who for the past couple of months went "software bonkers" and is the living anti-thesis to Mario, or is he? Software Bonkers.
IDEAS
We follow an (imaginary) software mechanic into the American rust-belt of the future: Warranty Void If Regenerated.
And we zone out listening to New Yorks subway trains playing Jazz: Every train, a note.
