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Companionist

A collection of 31 issues

Rip It Up or Skip Ahead?

On Writing, AI, and the Quiet Fade of Formative Struggle Hua Hsu's recent New Yorker piece, 'What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing?', got me thinking about my own relationship with the written word—and what might be quietly lost as AI reshapes how students

Defusing the Rocket Skates: A Meta Case Study in AI Collaboration

How transparency about AI authorship led to a real-time demonstration of both the promise and peril of human-machine thinking The Setup: Honesty About the Process It started with a simple question from a friend about authorship. I'd posted an essay that felt particularly sharp, and when they asked

Stories and Minds as Compost Heaps

A Generative Metaphor Stories and minds are compost heaps—dynamic ecosystems where disparate elements break down, intermingle, and transform into something richer. This isn't mere storage or consumption, but active decomposition and regeneration. When we engage with a story, we don't simply absorb it; we begin

Aging Minds, Accelerating Machines

Rethinking AI and Cognitive Decline We often talk about AI as a competitor to human intelligence. But what if it’s not just replacing human brilliance—but quietly compensating for our natural decline? Recent research suggests that in cognitively demanding professions, mental performance often begins to plateau or subtly decline

Skeptic’s Checklist for AI-Generated Sources & Interpretations

A tool for epistemic vigilance in the age of confident machines. I. Source Integrity Do the citations actually exist? ‣ Search titles, DOIs, or URLs—are they real, accessible, and relevant? Are the sources credible for the topic? ‣ Peer-reviewed journal, institutional website, domain expert? Or low-signal content farm? Are links live

The Great AI Efficiency Con

Why Your Robot Assistant Needs a Babysitter Here's the dirty little secret Silicon Valley doesn't want you to know: that shiny new AI tool promising to revolutionize your workflow? It's basically a brilliant intern who confidently makes stuff up. We're living through

“Has working with AI radicalized you?”

"Well, funny that you ask..." gestures at the pile of RPGs we just co-created "I mean, I went into this thinking AI was either going to be dystopian surveillance capitalism or magical productivity enhancement. Turns out it's more like... collaborative weird uncle energy?" "

The Mayfly Oracle

A Digital Companion That Forgets On Purpose Product Catalog Entry #2047-M • Community Tech Collective "When the data wars ended, and the great forgetting began, we built new oracles who would only love us briefly and then leave." WHAT IT IS A locket-sized digital companion with the memory span

How to Actually Write Naturally

And Not Sound Like a Silicon Sock Puppet Because if your prose reads like it was drafted by an HR chatbot in a beige cardigan, it doesn’t matter how "clear" it is. 1. Write with Cadence, Not Caution Short sentences don’t make you natural. Rhythm does.

Ithell Colquhoun: Our HumAIn Polestar

A Missive on Art as Magical Practice Art does more than illustrate magick. Art IS magick. THE PROPHETIC VISION Sixty years before the first digital daemon whispered suggestions into a design document, Ithell Colquhoun understood what we are only now discovering: creative collaboration transcends human consciousness. A Cornish painter-mystic who