The Subsidy and the Severance
AI's free-lunch phase is ending, and that makes AI-driven layoff math harder to defend. Two repricings, one ledger.
tag · 23 essays
#genai
All essays tagged genai.
Workflow.ts: When the Code Runs the Agent, Not the Other Way Around
Agent loops let the model pick the next step. Workflows invert that. Code owns the control flow; the model owns the judgment inside each step. Here is the TypeScript file I am running today, type-checked against the live SDK, and the honest answer to whether you should build this now or wait for the official tool.
★The Dark Factory Model for AI-Driven Software Development
Most engineers treat AI-generated code like work from a junior developer they don't trust. Simon Willison gave me a better mental model: the dark factory. Here is what it means, why experience is the raw material, and how to build a system that runs.
Open Weights, Real Stakes: Running Gemma 4 31B Locally
Google dropped Gemma 4, and I had it running locally the same night. What open weights actually mean, the hardware reality, and why the most interesting AI architectures are about to go hybrid — on-device and in the cloud.
From Copy-Paste to Skill: What Thousands of AI Coding Sessions Taught Me About Guardrails
After thousands of sessions with Claude Code, Codex, Kiro, and every other LLM-based CLI and IDE, I distilled what I learned into a reusable Claude Skill. Here's how those lessons became the guardrails that let me move faster and actually trust the output.
They're Using Claude to Ship Claude (And It Shows)
Anthropic has shipped more meaningful product features in the last few weeks than most teams ship in a quarter. A theory — and what it tells us about what AI-assisted development actually unlocks when a team uses their own product to build it.
From iOS to Android in a Weekend: How I Used Claude Code to Build a Complete App Without Writing a Single Line of Code
I took a production iOS app, pointed Claude Code at it, and had a fully functional Android app in eight hours over a weekend. Here's exactly how it worked.
From Caffeine Addict to App Builder: How I Vibe Coded a Pour-Over Coffee App in One Afternoon
My wife started making pour-over coffee. I started building her an app. What used to take weeks of Swift development now takes hours with AI-assisted coding. Here's the story of PourCraft, caffeine dependency, and the moment I realized the game has changed.
Building StillView 3.0: Raising the Quality Bar with Claude Code and Opus 4.5
Using Claude Code and Opus 4.5 as thinking partners helped me rebuild confidence, clarity, and quality in a growing macOS codebase.
The New Abstraction Layer: AI, Agents, and the Leverage Moving Up the Stack
Andrej Karpathy put words to something many engineers are quietly feeling: we have been handed a powerful alien tool with no manual. Where the leverage is actually moving up the software stack — and what that means for the people writing code right now.
The Year Ahead in AI, Enterprise Software, and the Future of Work
From generative AI as a tool to AI as a strategic partner. Reflections on 2025 and what excites me most about 2026.
Frontier Models, Small Language Models, and a New Middle Path
The most strategic AI decision is not which model to use — it is knowing when generic intelligence is not enough. AWS Nova Forge marks the shift from consuming AI to owning a specialized slice of it, and why that middle path is where enterprise AI actually lives.
My Journey to Trusting GenAI With More of My Code
How my workflow evolved from autocomplete magic to spec driven development, and why trusting GenAI with more of my code has changed how I build software.
The Rise of MCP Servers: Why Every Developer Will Have a Personal AI Toolchain
From AWS to GitHub to Podman, MCP servers are quietly becoming the new plug-in ecosystem for developers—and it’s changing how we work.
From Procrastination to Privacy-First Productivity (Part 2)
After building two open-source task managers to battle procrastination, I took it further — secure cloud sync, end-to-end encryption, and now an MCP server that connects your tasks to AI.
Beyond the Hype: Why GenAI Adoption in Development Isn't the Silver Bullet We Expected
The resistance to GenAI tools isn't simply about developers being stubborn or afraid of change—it's a rational response to tools that haven't yet proven their value universally, in an environment where people are already managing substantial change fatigue, and where the quality bar for production code remains high.
From AI to Agents: Building Smarter Systems that think, decide and act
Exploring the evolution from AI to AI Agents with a hands-on FinOps example. Learn how AWS Strands enables autonomous agents to monitor cloud spend, notify on overages, and free humans to focus on higher-judgment work.
My AI Subscription Problem (or is it obsession)
A humorous confession about subscribing to nine different AI development tools in my quest to find the best tool(s).
What worked in 2010 is our blueprint for the AI-infused future
Just like Cloud before, today's AI transformation demands companies rebuild their operating models, leadership structures, and developer experience instead of retrofitting AI onto existing workflows.
The Future of Interfaces
AI-powered interfaces are evolving beyond traditional graphical UIs toward intent-based interactions, where users describe desired outcomes rather than navigating through menus and clicks.
We are standing at the edge of another tech revolution
AI represents the third major tech revolution (after the internet and mobile), and like previous waves of creative destruction, it will eliminate some jobs while creating entirely new careers and opportunities for those who adapt quickly.
From Vibe Mode to Spec Mode: Why I’m All In on Kiro
A hands-on look at how AWS Kiro transforms AI-assisted development from chaotic vibes into structured, spec-driven engineering.
I just ran a 20-billion-parameter LLM entirely offline, from my Mac at home
Successfully running OpenAI's 20-billion-parameter open-weight model (gpt-oss-20b) locally on a Mac M4 Pro, highlighting the potential of offline AI that rivals cloud-based models without internet dependency or costs.
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