Essays · field notes · short reads
Notes from the field — by Jared Lukes.
Technology, humanity, philosophy, design, and maths — written from the keyboard, not the marketing seat. Working essays on agentic AI, fractional leadership, the future of work, the trust economy, and the slow work of building things that last.
The dark forest is coming, and AI is ushering it in. I've started self-hosting my own agentic apps over Tailscale — fast fiber, underused machines at home, and a trust economy that's quietly rearranging itself.
Self-taught builders have scars; academics have scaffolds. The sweet spot is build it, break it, fix it — then go find yourself some rigor.
As an AI engineer, I get asked about the future of work constantly. We're entering the era of the songwriter more than the banjo player — AI condenses skill, and that hands the room back to the idea people.
Humanity stands at a crossroads — between primal instincts and a collaborative future. Scarcity is over; the mindset that built the survival circuitry is the part we still have to outrun.
Python is no monopoly. Its strength is semantic alignment with human cognition — code that lets people think without first reshaping how they think. That's also why it may be the last language designed for us.
LLMs are pattern-matchers trained on the meat of the curve. If yours stalls when you push it, that might mean you're not echoing the crowd — that you're early.
AI reveals a hidden truth — repetition shapes reality. What you repeat, you become. Change the loop, change yourself.
AI companies have hit peak data and are now hunting expert reasoning. Creators and professionals — especially the ones who teach in public — are the new training set.
Universities are cracking down on AI use, but their fear exposes a bigger problem — education's obsession with memorization over real learning.
Wave Two of AI is here — agents that loop, iterate, and refine. Listen to the engineers, not the CEOs. The engineers will tell you the truth about what's coming.
Joseph Campbell said you can't predict a myth any more than you can predict a dream. Challenge accepted. There's a goldmine in forecasting the next mythology — and we sure could use a good one.
Stop trying to make a single AI agent be a jack-of-all-trades. Separate creative thinking from formatted output — one agent goes wide, another parses the output into something predictable.
A rainy-morning meditation on aesthetic morality — how we treat butterflies versus spiders, the payola fight that became Misplaced Music Radio, and the longing for a real movement to be alive for.
Talent is a misunderstood concept. What we call "talent" is mostly thousands of hours of practice and overactive minds finding ways to stay interested. The label costs us more than it gives us.
An unexpected night in Duluth with the goat of cannabis and country, and a meditation on how authenticity attracts the most diverse audience you'll ever stand in.
As generative AI rewrites work culture, the value of solitary deep-focus work is up for debate. The expert who handles the edge cases is more important than ever — even if the loud-and-pretty tier doesn't notice yet.
Gen X rode the wave from American Dream to digital revolution, and built a startup culture that often glorified disruption at the expense of sustainability. Generation Y inherits that.
Five practical steps for surfacing the quiet voices on your team — plus a story about John Olson climbing scaffolding to celebrate a brand pivot before anyone else knew it was happening.
Exploring the increasing vulnerability of SaaS products in the AI era, this article delves into the diminishing novelty in digital services, the rising significance of open source, and how passion and purpose will define future technologica
Exposing the sad truths behind the attempt made by corporate America to vertically integrate creative services.
Exploring the need for critical thinking amidst the trend of positivity in social sharing and thought leadership. Advocating for a balanced discourse that embraces both the sweetness of optimism and the necessary bitterness of critique to f
Exploring the complexities of morality, personal growth, and life's gray areas in pursuit of a nuanced, authentic existence.
Tools like GPT and voice-to-text software redefine the concept of writing, this article reflects on the transformative power of journaling and audio capture.
Exploring the shift towards private, home-based servers and networks in response to the generative AI era, prioritizing data ownership and privacy.
Exploring a gamer's journey emphasizing caution around how fairness can be a huge draw BUT addiction, in addition to the benefits and connections found in gaming.
Exploring generative AI's ethical landscape, advocating for rights, creator compensation, and a balanced, humane technological future.
A look at how the capitalist education market can ruin an entire design practice in just a few years.
AI surpasses human capabilities, inspiring a shift from individual competition to collective achievements and collaboration for greater goals.
Exploring the role of fear in human thought and its absence in AI, pondering AI's emotional understanding and lifecycle.
A retrospective of all the help I got becoming a data scientist
The digital realm no longer holds the allure of novelty that it once did.
Blog post description.
6 emerging design practices I see shaping our future with a few sci-fi twists
3.14159265359…. don’t care. And here’s why.
An essay about one of my heroes the wildly misunderstood Nikola Tesla.
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