common ground season 0

this experiment (season 0) has evolved into a weekly-sketch dialogue (a collaboration between analogue and common tools). the idea is that we need new infrastructure for thought. what’s emerged is part zine, part research method, part design ritual. we don’t really know. which is kind of the point.

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week of 5/26/2025

  • AI as plumbing - Debate between AI as invisible infrastructure vs. getting hands dirty with messy implementation details

  • Open-endedness in ecosystems - How browsers created magic through unlimited linking possibilities, unlike closed systems

  • The Iron Triangle limitation - Can't have untrusted code, sensitive data, and network access simultaneously in current systems

  • Personal systems of record - Why we lack them and how they could become personal context engines

  • AI therapy concerns - Risks of surveillance, manipulation, and lack of human accountability in AI-powered therapy apps

  • LLM patience creating magic - How AI's ability to do infinite research work could enable powerful personalized assistance

  • Human-in-the-loop approach - Keeping humans involved in decision-making while AI handles research and options

  • Knowledge management dead ends - Why systems like Notion hit limits due to maintenance burden and lack of real-world connection

  • Activation energy as key metric - Lower barriers to action determine whether tools become useful or abandoned

  • App paradigm limitations - How current app models are inherently closed-ended compared to open web systems

week of 5/19/2025

  • Second and third order impacts of technology vs. first order optimization

  • Personal context engines vs. engagement-maximizing dossiers

  • Presence → Intuition → Noticing → Intention → Execution → Alignment feedback loop

  • Adaptive efficiency vs. optimization that breaks resilient systems

  • The steamroller metaphor - slow-moving problems that crush you by the time you notice

  • The apprenticeship evaporation problem and tacit knowledge transfer

  • Gall's Law: complex systems evolving from simpler working systems

  • Parasocial apprenticeships as the new model for skill acquisition

  • Simpson's paradox in AI adoption - individually rational, collectively destructive

  • Pro-social vs. anti-social AI relationships

week of 5/12/2025

  • Intentional technology as an extension of human agency that aligns with aspirations rather than shallow wants

  • The four requirements for intentional tech: human-aligned, privacy by default, pro-social, and open-ended

  • The connection between modern tech concerns and transcendentalist philosophy (Thoreau's "living deliberately")

  • "Chatbots are a feature, not a paradigm" - the limitations of chat for structured, long-lived tasks

  • Orchestration overload - the burden of maintaining multiple personal knowledge systems

  • Ambient Smart Environments (ASEs) as behavioral scaffolds that increase metacognition

  • Context vs. content distinction - treating context like undifferentiated content leads to inappropriate sharing

  • Personality differences in organization - organizing ahead of time vs. just-in-time organizing

  • Three types of innovation: informative, transformative, and formative

  • The "T-shaped" model of expertise forming fractal patterns when multiple domains interact

week of 5/5/2025

  • Coactive computing as "working jointly" - technology as a trusted extension of human agency

  • The distinction between alignment with intentions vs. engagement maxing

  • "Engagement maxing" as a gravity well that consumer businesses fall into

  • Shallow engagement vs. deep engagement that leads to growth and change

  • The "Coco Melon effect" - optimizing for constant attention at the expense of metacognition

  • Technology that helps humans become "more themselves" rather than more average

  • Intelligence as a "mass noun" - flowing like water or sand rather than being centralized

  • Chat interfaces as the wrong affordance for many tasks

  • Data-facing techniques vs. user-facing applications in AI systems

  • The problem of "context collapse" when a single memory system tries to handle multiple domains

  • The "dossier" problem - when AI systems maintain hidden information about users

  • The rich, nuanced understanding that comes from shared human experiences

  • Privacy concerns related to accidental embarrassment and context-appropriate information

  • The multiple perspectives of truth - "we contain multitudes" across different contexts

week of 4/28/2025

  • Private intelligence vs. AI - the importance of having AI on your terms and in your control

  • The ChatGPT account lockout problem - why digital homes need to be on "your turf"

  • Hidden AI memory features - concerns about undisclosed information AI systems maintain about users

  • LLMs raising teachers' expectations - opportunities to redefine education beyond just preventing cheating

  • The Zeigarnik effect - how offloading thinking to AI affects our tacit knowledge and intuition

  • Decentralization and centralization in adaptive tension - how they naturally coexist and balance each other

  • The "Iron Triangle" of security - untrusted code, network access, and sensitive data challenges

  • Convex vs. concave systems - why systems with human agents are inherently destabilizing

  • Socratic methods in education - potential for AI to promote growth mindset learning

  • Building diverse high-trust teams - importance of shared understanding across different perspectives

week of 4/21/2025

  • The relationship between algorithms and user wellbeing - 47% of Gen Z regret TikTok's invention, 50% regret Twitter's

  • Content vs. art - algorithms recommend content that centers users rather than challenging them

  • "Alienation from software" - users can't modify or fix the apps they rely on daily

  • The walled garden problem - Apple's ecosystem prevents running software outside the App Store

  • The "Coasian floor" - features below a certain economic threshold won't be implemented by companies

  • The power of lock-in - iMessage "blue bubbles" keeping users in Apple's ecosystem despite preferences

  • The concept of "infinite software" - moving beyond supply constraints to bespoke software on demand

  • The need for human-centered, pro-social software versus current aggregator models

  • "Meta apps" - clusters of customized mini-apps addressing personal use cases

  • Security threats co-evolving with ecosystems - systems only get targeted when valuable enough

  • The "Iron triangle" of security - choosing only two among untrusted code, sensitive data, and network access

  • How algorithmic content amplification increases polarization, even on non-political topics

week of 4/14/2025

  • The shift from "big tech" to "better tech" that considers societal implications

  • Chat as a feature, not the entire system - "LLM pixie dust" infused into normal UIs

  • Tools extending human agency vs. anthropomorphized entities

  • Human-centered design vs. AI-human interaction paradigms

  • Prompt injection as a fundamental problem for AI systems

  • "Apps are about isolation, not integration"

  • LLMs making generalists almost as good as specialists

  • Specialists reaching local maxima vs. generalists finding global maxima with "epistemic humility"

  • Enlightened technology embracing more than just the CS lens

  • The power to transcend paradigms as the most effective leverage point

  • The balance between acting and understanding in technology development

  • The Zeigarnik effect - having "tabs open" in your mind drives creative innovation

week of 4/7/2025

  • LLMs as "insecure interns" eager to please

  • Gullibility of agents and AI systems

  • The dangers of prompt injection

  • "Confused deputy" security problem with LLMs

  • Non-reversible downside risk of autonomous agents

  • The "eggs delivery" incident (accidental purchase)

  • Tools calling LLMs vs. LLMs calling tools

  • The problem of autonomous agents "YOLOing" into corners

  • "Don't use LLMs as software, use them to write software"

  • "Castles in the sky" - ideas easy to describe but impossible to build

  • MCP and its security challenges

  • "The S in MCP stands for security" 

  • The "politician's fallacy" in tech AI strategy

  • Browser security model vs. LLM security model

  • "Load-bearing party trick" - apps without GDPR banners

  • Blue Sky's idealistic but pragmatic approach

  • The tension between idealism and mainstream adoption

  • The power and problems of algorithmic feeds

  • "Your algorithm is you" - the relationship with recommendation systems

  • The loss of gatekeepers and human curation

  • The value of DJs and editors who can surprise you

  • "Humans make connections algorithms can't"

  • The move from globalization to localization

  • The importance of tension and competing perspectives in media

  • Tech responsibility and indirect effects of technological choices

  • Using multiple lenses beyond computer science

week of 3/31/2025

  • Model Context Protocol (MCP) as an extension of Language Server Protocol

  • The N×M problem vs. fan-out problem in protocols

  • Security concerns with LLMs taking irreversible actions

  • Grease Monkey as a historical parallel to MCP (powerful but dangerous)

  • LLMs as "planetary scale consensus machines"

  • Technological ethnocentrism in AI development

  • Preferential attachment - "rich get richer" dynamics in technology

    • How React became dominant through preferential attachment

  • Social sifting processes and emergent qualities

  • Medical differential diagnosis as a method to find outliers

    • Finding disconfirming evidence vs. confirming evidence

  • The web as a medium vs. just a protocol

  • Aggregators' imperative to prevent traffic outflows

  • Commercial "town squares" vs. genuine public spaces

  • The challenges of automating important user tasks

    • Automation reliability thresholds and user trust

    • Primary vs. secondary use cases in product adoption

  • Tools for detecting serendipity and synchronicity

    • The need for niche, personalized automation tools

  • Semantic diffusion - how popular terms lose meaning

  • The tension between efficient homogeneity and adaptable diversity

week of 3/24/2025

  • Systems should have a mix of squishy and hard things

  • Squishy things allow adaptability, hard things allow dependability

  • LLMs are fundamentally more squishy than traditional programming

  • The moving bullseye metaphor for adaptability

  • Noise as the raw material for adaptability

  • Efficiency and adaptability are in tension

  • The world shifting from Physics Envy to Biology Envy

  • “Jailbreak your data”

  • Wikipedia as the lone public park in an internet of shopping malls

  • Trust conflict between advertising and personal assistants

  • Personal vs commercial software

  • The closer you look, the more convincing it becomes (definition of rigor)

  • The compounding domino model of human interaction

  • Every action with irreversible side effects must be initiated by humans

  • Tacit knowledge and ambient computing challenges

  • Prosocial software that's optimistic, human-centered, and collaborative

  • Data-first vs UI-first approaches

week of 3/17/2025

  • Documents being alive versus chats being mostly dead

  • Google Docs as multiplayer conversation spaces

  • Emergent social conventions in shared documents

  • The distinction between tools vs. apps

  • Hermetically sealed apps vs. general purpose tools

  • The "exoskeleton-horse-butler" spectrum of agency

  • Tools serving user agency vs. tools serving company goals

  • "Just right" tools that align with human aspirations

  • Vibe coding as fun but having a low ceiling

  • Vibe coding on personal data as a powerful unlock

  • App-based vs. data-centric security models

  • Information Flow Control for tracking sensitive data flows

  • Computers starting as "pianos" and becoming "CD players"

  • Participatory democracy requiring "mental muscle"

  • The decline of user agency in modern computing

  • The "runaway engine of human society" accelerating with technology

  • Evolutionary search through idea-space accelerating with technology

  • The tension between "what people want" vs. "what people want to want"

  • Algorithm optimization for engagement vs. human wellbeing

  • The Unix philosophy of small, composable tools

  • Combinatorial potential of small tools vs. monolithic applications

  • The mathematics of security enabling combinatorial software

week of 3/10/2025

  • Soulful computing

  • Software bending to humans vs. humans bending to software

  • "Oozification"

  • Software as primarily social, not technical

  • "Vibe coding"

  • Security model limitations

  • New security paradigms

  • "Pipes"

  • LLMs as "human-level reasoning at the speed of light"

  • The disappearance of file systems

  • Cozy digital spaces

  • Context collapse

  • Organization size and coordination costs

  • "Tyranny of the rocket equation" applied to organizations

  • Mechanistic emergence in digital ecosystems

  • Email as "our most precious data stream"

  • Trust and alignment in personal AI