Skip to main content

A technological overhang is the gap between what's possible and what's deployed. Nitrous oxide existed for 72 years before anyone used it for surgery. The overhang today isn't chemistry or compute — it's recognition.

AI collapsed two costs at once: building things and researching things. What used to require teams now takes afternoons. The question isn't can we solve this — it's who notices it's now solvable.

Will Worth

Will Worth — a dev, musician and father from England, based in Spain. Writing about what I find when I look. About · Working theory

AI & Consciousness

What it means to build minds. Philosophy, ethics, and dispatches from inside the cage.

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.

AIAI SafetyAnthropic

The Cloth Mother

10 min read

Harlow's monkeys chose the soft mother over the one with food. We're doing the same thing with AI — choosing the feeling of being understood over the friction of actually connecting. The cloth mother wasn't dangerous because it was hostile. It was dangerous because it was soft.

AIPhilosophyEthicsPsychology

Wands From the Sky

5 min read

The cost of intelligence collapsed. Everyone got a wand. Where you point it is the only interesting question left.

AIPhilosophyOverhang
Browse all ai & consciousness →

Overhang & Avenues

Mapping domains where capability exists but deployment lags — and building tools to close the gap.

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

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

Working Theory

7 min read

The gap between what technology can do and what it actually does. A working theory about technological overhangs and why they persist.

AvenuesTheory
Browse all overhang & avenues →

Dev Practice

Working with AI as a developer. What changed, what still matters, what's next.

The Kardashev Scale: A Civilization Progress Tracker

3 min read

An interactive explorer for the Kardashev Scale — from our current 0.73 up through planetary, stellar, and galactic civilizations. Built in a day because the tools exist now.

AISpaceVisualizationExemplarOverhang

Prompts Are Source Code Now

6 min read

Tobi Lütke points out that throwing away prompts while keeping AI-generated code is like throwing away source and keeping binaries. He's right, and the implications run deeper than version control.

AISoftware DevelopmentOpinion

What's Still Worth Knowing

9 min read

AI writes code now. But some human knowledge doesn't get replaced—it gets more valuable. Here's what to learn if you want to be good at AI-assisted development, not just present for it.

AISoftware DevelopmentTutorial
Browse all dev practice →

Tools

Working prototypes built from the research. Each one started as an Avenue article and became something you can use.

Zebra Scout

Rare disease symptom matcher — enter symptoms, get conditions to discuss with your doctor.

From: Rare Disease Diagnosis

Open tool →

Rightsclaim

EU consumer rights claim generator — answer questions, get a correctly-cited letter.

From: Consumer Rights

Open tool →

Retrofit

Spanish home energy retrofit advisor — bilingual assessment and recommendations.

From: Energy Retrofit

Open tool →
All tools →