Epistemic Foraging (091)

Lofi tools for developing real autonomy

Feb 10, 2025

Happy Monday and welcome to our weekly dive into the reality-shifting waves of AI.

Thanks to tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot, coding now feels less like a privileged domain and more like a straightforward way to strengthen our personal agency. We no longer need to be professional developers to give shape to our ideas – anyone with curiosity and a willingness to experiment can start building projects that might have been relegated to “maybe someday” only a year ago.

This newfound accessibility isn’t only about syntax or fancy libraries; it’s about bridging that gap between imagination and implementation. When you realize you can whip up a working prototype in days (or even hours), your perspective on what’s possible broadens exponentially, and that rush of autonomy redefines your relationship with technology. In many ways, AI is inviting us to rethink who can be a builder, removing traditional barriers and placing powerful tools into the hands of anyone willing to learn.

I’m channeling that energy into a course called Coding for Non-Coders, aimed at demystifying the coding process for everyone so inclined. It’s not about making everyone a software engineer, but rather giving people the confidence and resources to create on their own terms, especially if they’ve been on the sidelines of tech. When you experience that moment where your idea transforms into a real, working tool, you’ll never look at your potential the same way again.

I’ll have a lot more to share in the coming months. I have experimented extensively with how to scale my own learnings around AI through this newsletter, and it feels like coding has become the strongest through-line in my work. Let me know if this resonates, and what you would like to see next.

Spring Meetups

I am aligning personal travel plans with opportunities to meet as many of you as possible. Join the regional WhatsApp groups to help coordinate and save the following dates if you’re around:

Amsterdam: Week of March 10 (Exact date TBD). Derek & Laly are helping me organize a show & tell of personal AI projects so please let us know in the group if you have something to share!
London: March 21 or 22 (I’m flexible and we can coordinate on WhatsApp).
Lisbon: April 29 (Before FutureDays) with the help of Emma & Pedro.
São Paulo: Week of May 12, exact date TBD.