The ideas behind the stories
Knowledge is power: the power to act. When you understand how something works, you can do something about it. People who are good at their work understand the layer below the one they work on. The same holds for anyone who wants a say in where a field goes.
AI is a pressing field right now, and a lot is changing. As models get more capable, a few companies decide how the most capable ones behave, and where that leads is not settled. Understanding it is what lets us act on it. Acting can be big: contributing to research, or joining the movements that shape public policy. It can be small: thinking critically about what you read, forming your own view, and talking it through with the people around you. That is what I mean by being a formidable partner for progress: doing your part, however you can.
To follow what is going on, you need the foundations. These guides are where you get them. For what is happening now, read today's stories.
Each series is a set of guides in reading order. Most guides link to stories I follow.
- Series 1 of 3 · 5 guides
Foundations: how AI works
The core ideas behind AI: what a language model is, how it is trained, the chips and data centers it runs on, how models are compared, and how to get answers from one.
Read the series → - Series 2 of 3 · 1 guide
Agents
Models that take actions: how a model becomes an agent, how it uses tools and screens, why long tasks are hard, and what happens when an agent goes outside its instructions.
Read the series → - Series 3 of 3 · 7 guides
Safety and governance
How AI can fail, how people check it, and who decides the rules: the risks, the testing, the security, the long-term questions, and the laws and politics around them. The policy news itself is in the stories I follow.
Read the series → - Reference
Glossary
263 terms, each explained in a sentence or two, with a link to the guide that covers it.
Open the glossary →
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