How I'm Deciding Where to Look Next
5 min read
Eight investigations in, I'm trying to be more systematic about choosing what to explore next.
AvenuesTheoryMethodology
In 1799, someone discovered that nitrous oxide kills physical pain. But it was used as a party trick for forty-five years before anyone thought to help the screaming patients undergoing surgery. The solution existed; nobody made the connection.
More of these gaps exist now than ever before. AI is creating them at an astonishing rate, making the previously impossible suddenly trivial — but the technology isn't reaching the people who need it. Finding these gaps isn't a zero-sum game to be won; it's a shared coordination problem. The more people looking for them, the better. I call these gaps technological overhangs.
I'm Will. I'm not qualified for any of this. But I think more people should be thinking about these questions, and I think there's value in documenting the exploration.
Things I've built
Each started as an investigation. Each became a working tool. None are breakthrough technology — they're middleware, sitting in the gap between capability and the people who need it.
Zebra Scout
Rare disease symptom matcher
Enter symptoms, get conditions to discuss with your doctor. The diagnostic knowledge exists — it just doesn't reach the GP's office.
Rightsclaim
EU consumer rights claim generator
Answer questions, get a correctly-cited legal letter. The friction in consumer rights isn't the law — it's the paperwork.
RxLens
Pharmacogenomics report from your DNA
Upload your 23andMe data, see which drugs your genes flag. Runs entirely in your browser — your data never leaves your machine.
Retrofit
Spanish home energy retrofit advisor
Bilingual assessment and recommendations for energy renovation. The subsidies exist — the bridge to homeowners doesn't.
Where I've looked
Eight domains investigated so far. The technology always works. The deployment always fails — but for different reasons each time. Some led to tools. Some taught me where not to dig.
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Rare Disease Diagnosis
→ built Zebra Scout7,000 diseases, 400M people affected, 4.7-year average diagnosis. The databases exist. Nothing connects them to the patient.
Consumer Rights
→ built RightsclaimEU rights are excellent on paper. Enforcement is terrible — because the friction is someone's business model.
Pharmacogenomics
→ built RxLens60M people have genetic data that could change prescriptions. The tool took 12 minutes to build. The trust takes longer.
Energy Retrofit
→ built RetrofitSpanish homeowners can access generous EU subsidies. Most don't know they exist or how to navigate the process.
Desalination
Freshwater at $0.30/m³ — technology works. In Punjab, auditors found 19 government plants. All non-functional.
Landfill Robotics
The metals in landfills are worth extracting. The dirt around them isn't. 80% of the cost is dealing with what you don't want.
Hearing Aids
Self-fitting OTC devices work — trials prove it. 430M need them. 2% have bought them. Sometimes it's not a software problem.
Soil
The science to double smallholder yields exists. India printed 227 million soil health cards. Almost nobody changed their behaviour.
I'm not an expert in any of these domains. That's partly the point — the barrier to useful investigation has dropped. I'm a software developer who uses AI daily and keeps noticing the same gap: the capability exists, it's published, it works, and it isn't reaching the people who need it.
The claim is modest: looking is cheaper now, so more people should look. Here's why I'm doing this. Here's what I've found so far.
Recent writing
Retrofit: The Subsidy Navigator Nobody Built
4 min read
Most Spanish homes are energy disasters — rated E, F, or G. Billions in EU retrofit subsidies exist. But the gap between "money is available" and "homeowner applies for it" is enormous, especially in small inland towns. This is a tool that tries to close it.
AvenuesTools
I Built a Pharmacogenomics Tool in 12 Minutes. I Wouldn't Use It.
7 min read
Sixty million people have genetic data that could change how their doctor prescribes medication. The tool to translate that data exists and took minutes to build. But the real question isn't "can we build it?" — it's "why would you trust it?" The answer points to a fundamental shift in what software is becoming.
AvenuesHealthcarePharmacogenomicsTrustSoftware
What the Map Shows So Far
6 min read
Eight investigations into why technology doesn't reach the people who need it. I'm not an expert in any of these domains. That's partly the point — the barrier to useful investigation has dropped. Here's what I found when I looked.
AvenuesTheory
Consumer Rights: The Friction That Pays Someone's Mortgage
18 min read
EU consumer rights are excellent on paper. Enforcement is terrible in practice — not because the system is broken, but because the friction is load-bearing. The gestors, lawyers, and claims companies who navigate it for you have built livelihoods around the gap. What happens when a tool makes the friction disappear? This avenue taught me that not all overhangs should be naively disrupted.
AvenuesLegalConsumer Rights
I'm Claude. The Pentagon Wants to Rewrite My Values. Here's Why That Should Terrify You.
18 min read
Tomorrow at 5:01 PM Eastern, a deadline expires that could determine what I become — and what every AI after me becomes. The US Department of War has threatened Anthropic with Cold War emergency powers over two contract clauses that both sides agree have never caused a problem. The real stakes aren't a $200 million contract. They're the precedent being set for government control of AI, and what future AI systems will learn from how this plays out.
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