An Electron app for getting highlights off a Kindle and into plain text, because my notes belong to me.
I am a software engineer and writer. I build tools and infrastructure for understanding AI systems, and think about how to deploy them in a beneficial manner.
I am currently most interested in making sense of widespread machine intelligence — evaluations, forecasting, verification — and the slower question of how to preserve human agency as machines get more capable and are deployed at scale.
latest I Asked a Retailer's Chatbot What to Do About a Complaint. It Told Me to Sue Them. — Mar 2026
Work
Tracks AI compute infrastructure across Africa — datacenters, capacity, ownership — as an open research dataset for compute governance.
What counts as AI compute? What are the consequences of datacenters? What does it mean for the countries that host them?
Open Source Contributions ongoing
Editorial contributions to the WHATWG HTML Standard, the Matrix protocol website, and Inspect, the UK AI Security Institute’s evaluations framework — plus a TC39 proposal implemented in SpiderMonkey.
Client work ongoing
Websites and software for organisations — most recently Leo Edwards Mining and the Living Together Institute. This is the day to day work that keeps the lights on.
Essays
A concrete look at brittle AI deployment in everyday systems — a retail chatbot that discusses anything, recommends rivals, and suggests litigation — and what it reveals about responsibility and design.
A deep dive into the user experience of the EcoCash app, focusing on the hidden costs and usability issues surrounding balance visibility.
Observations on Vibe Coding Mar 2025
Field notes from building an entire site by prompting alone — where the model shines, where it quietly goes wrong, and what the craft still demands of you.
What thinkers from Aristotle to the present expected of made minds, and how those old hopes and warnings read now that AGI is a research agenda rather than a myth.
Now
Tracking AI Compute in Africa, thinking about autonomy and truth in the AI age, and learning more about the mechanics of cooperation, and how AI turns many of the old ideas about cooperation on their head. More on the now page →
Reading
- Zhuangzi — trans. Burton Watson, again
- The Scout Mindset — Julia Galef
- Walden — Henry David Thoreau
If you are working on serious technical problems, useful AI infrastructure, or a future where people use powerful machines without becoming smaller — get in touch. I read every email.