AI
- My former colleague Robert turned out to be quite a penman. He wrote a cool short sci-fi story called Null and void and published it in his blog. Check it out!
- Darwin Awards collects events where people have removed themselves from the gene pool by doing something stupid. The history of the site goes back to the 1990s, so you may have heard about it already, but this year they’ve got a new category for AI Darwin Awards. This new category honours the visionaries who looked at AI and thought “You know what this needs? Less safety testing and more venture capital!".
- Finally, you thought you knew what an email address looks like? The E-mail.wtf quiz is here to prove you wrong! I scored 14/21…
Random Things Sunday #10
Some random findings from the internets, this time catering to programmer-minded people:
A light exercise in vibe coding
A few months ago I tried vibe coding an ant colony simulator, but in the end it didn’t work out. I did mention that I had had successes in vibe coding, and lately I had one of those again.
For my previous post I needed to embed several YouTube videos. That, however, is very cumbersome when you’re blogging with your phone, as the mobile version of YouTube does not have the option to easily just copy the embed code, unlike the desktop version, so it was about to turn into an exercise in frustration.
But lo and behold, ChatGPT to the rescue. I gave it this prompt:
Are you really using AI?
Yesterday I was scrolling through my feed when I came across a short video by Allie K. Miller, who’s something of a thought leader in the AI business space. She mentioned that you probably use AI already, but asked if you’re really using it? AI can enable so many novel use cases that merely enhancing your old processes is kind of wasting its full potential.
It made me stop and think. Like many, I’ve been using AI tools here and there - asking ChatGPT to help with writing, generating some ideas, maybe summarizing content. But am I actually reimagining how I work?
Allie mentioned how after 10 years of creating AI content (7 of those without AI tools), she completely rebuilt her workflow. Now she dictates to Otter AI while walking, runs her content through multiple AI systems, and formats everything in Beehiiv with auto-links. More steps, but apparently 80% time saved. That’s not just enhancement.
I wonder if most of us are in that “scratching the surface” phase with AI that Allie mentions. We’re asking AI to help with tasks we already do, rather than rethinking what tasks we should be doing in the first place.
I’m obviously not using AI to its fullest potential either. My current workflows still look pretty much like they did a couple of years ago, with some AI assistance sprinkled in rather than built around them. There’s something to think about there.
(By the way, I don’t often subscribe to newsletters, but I do follow Allie’s work. If any of this piqued your interest, you might want to check out her newsletter at AI with Allie.)
Vibe coding an ant colony simulator
When it comes to household chores, ironing is one of my favorites as it often allows me to shorten my “Watch later” playlist (771 videos there as of writing this…) in YouTube. Last time I did ironing I watched this cool video of an ant colony simulator:
The fun thing is that it creates fascinating emergent behavior from a few simple rules. The ants walk around randomly, leaving behind a trail of pheromones like breadcrumbs pointing back home, and when they encounter food, they pick some up and follow the pheromone trail back to the nest. While carrying food they leave behind another type of pheromone that point the ants to the food source.
This seemed like an interesting exercise in vibe coding where you just describe your need in your own words and let an AI do the actual programming for you. Vibe coding seems to split the opinions sharply: some find that it makes coding more equal and available to anyone, others loathe the idea of an influx of AI-generated trash.