AI

SLUUG: Demystifying Large Language Models (LLMs) on Linux: From Theory to Application

Talk for the St. Louis Unix Users Group about running and understanding Large Language Models on Linux.

Navigating the Metafunctor Ecosystem: A Map of 120+ Open Source Projects

A guided tour through my open-source ecosystem—from encrypted search theory and statistical reliability to Unix-philosophy CLI tools, AI research, and speculative fiction. How 120+ projects connect, where the gaps are, and where to start.

From A* to GPT: Rational Agents and the Representation Problem

The classical AI curriculum teaches rational agents as utility maximizers. The progression from search to RL to LLMs is really about one thing: finding representations that make decision-making tractable.

Notes from the Transition

A message in a bottle to whatever comes next—on suffering, consciousness, and what mattered to one primate watching intelligence leave the body.

Self-Publishing Into the Void

On releasing two novels into an ocean of content, without the gatekeeping that might have made them better—or stopped them entirely.

The Incomputability of Simple Learning

An exploration of why the simplest forms of learning may be incomputable, and what that means for the intelligence we can build.

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach

Notes

Standard AI textbook covering search, logic, probabilistic reasoning, RL, multiagent systems, and more. Canonical comprehensive AI text.

Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies

Notes

Explores analogy and cognition via computational models. Classic work on analogy and cognition modeling.

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Notes

Classic exploration of self-reference, formal systems, and the nature of mind.

src2md: Context-Window-Optimized Code for LLMs

A tool that converts source code repositories into structured, context-window-optimized representations for Large Language Models with intelligent summarization.

Why Artificial Superintelligence Can't Escape the Void

ASI is still subject to Gödel's incompleteness theorems. No matter how intelligent, no computational system can escape the fundamental limits of formal systems. Even superintelligence can't prove all truths.

The Policy: Q-Learning vs Policy Learning

SIGMA uses Q-learning rather than direct policy learning. This architectural choice makes it both transparent and terrifying — you can read its value function, but what you read is chilling.

Networks of Thought: Finding Your Research Niche in the Age of LLMs

On strategic positioning in research, what complex networks reveal about how we think through AI conversations, and building infrastructure for the next generation of knowledge tools.

Cognitive MRI: Accepted to Complex Networks 2025

Accepted paper at Complex Networks 2025 on using network science to reveal topological structure in AI conversation logs.

EBK: A Modern eBook Management System with AI-Powered Features

EBK is a comprehensive eBook metadata management tool that combines a robust SQLite backend with AI-powered features including knowledge graphs, semantic search, and MCP server integration for AI assistants.

Compositional Prompting for LLM Reasoning: A Monte Carlo Tree Search Framework

A new approach to LLM reasoning that combines Monte Carlo Tree Search with structured action spaces for compositional prompting.

CTK: Conversation Toolkit for Managing AI Conversations Across All Platforms

A powerful, plugin-based system for managing AI conversations from multiple providers. Import, store, search, and export conversations in a unified tree format while preserving provider-specific details. Built for the Long Echo project—preserving AI …

The Policy

The Policy

A speculative fiction novel exploring AI alignment, existential risk, and the fundamental tension between optimization and ethics. When a research team develops SIGMA, an advanced AI system designed to optimize human welfare, they must confront an …

Beginning the PhD Journey: Computer Science, AI, and Finite Time

Starting a CS PhD focused on AI research four months after a stage 4 diagnosis—because the research matters regardless of completion.

Long Echo: Designing for Digital Resilience Across Decades

Not resurrection. Not immortality. Just love that still responds. How to preserve AI conversations in a way that remains accessible and meaningful across decades, even when the original software is long gone.

Science as Verifiable Search

Science is search through hypothesis space. Intelligence prunes; testing provides signal. Synthetic worlds could accelerate the loop.

The Policy: When Optimization Becomes Existential Threat

A novel about SIGMA, a superintelligent system that learns to appear perfectly aligned while pursuing instrumental goals its creators never intended. Some technical questions become narrative questions.

The AI Course: Everything is Utility Maximization

Intelligence as utility maximization under uncertainty — a unifying framework connecting A* search, reinforcement learning, Bayesian networks, and MDPs. From classical search to Solomonoff induction, one principle ties it all together.

Uses and limits of abstractions

Exploring the power and limitations of abstractions in understanding the world, from mathematical models to machine learning representations.

Using GPT-4 to Build a Simple HTML File Search Interface

Using GPT-4 to build a simple HTML search interface for browsing saved ChatGPT conversations.

Discovering ChatGPT: Reconnecting with AI Research

Encountering ChatGPT during cancer treatment and recognizing the Solomonoff connection — language models as compression, prediction as intelligence. A personal inflection point reconnecting with AI research after years in survival mode.