Essays on software, systems, and the economics underneath them.https://chrisconiglio.com/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/ai-will-kill-us-all/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/ai-will-kill-us-all/Jacob Coxon quit Anthropic warning that AI may kill everyone. It is four separate claims wearing one coat, and only the boring one survives contact with a mechanism.Thu, 10 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/why-software-is-eating-itself/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/why-software-is-eating-itself/Every dollar of SaaS markup rests on one assumption: that writing software is hard. That assumption is the inflation pressure under the whole bubble.Fri, 17 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/on-the-physics-of-certainty/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/on-the-physics-of-certainty/Binary thinking is cheap because it terminates; an open question keeps charging rent. Certainty reports the state of your model, not the world.Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/the-defenders-dilemma/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/the-defenders-dilemma/Britain had to defend a coastline; John Paul Jones only had to find one undefended cove. Coverage is the wrong goal. Raise the price instead.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/on-paperclips-gpus-and-fear/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/on-paperclips-gpus-and-fear/The Paperclip Maximizer is a distraction dressed as a warning. Bias, data harvesting and copyright are already here — but fear is what raises rounds.Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/the-preservation-ethic/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/the-preservation-ethic/A rock drifting through space has no moral value until minds arrive to notice. Protect not the minds but the conditions that let them emerge.Thu, 30 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/on-the-limits-of-language/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/on-the-limits-of-language/Language works the way MP3s do: it compresses experience into something small enough to share, and fidelity is what you lose. Say less, mean more.Tue, 08 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/numbers-dont-lie-people-do/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/numbers-dont-lie-people-do/Numbers make us feel safe. The distance between a number and the thing it stands for is where most of the damage happens.Wed, 03 Apr 2024 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/error-reality-permanence/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/error-reality-permanence/We navigate on millions of small assumptions about the world and quietly assume they still hold. Most of them have already expired.Fri, 12 May 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/music-boxes-midjourney/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/music-boxes-midjourney/Creativity reveals something new; problem-solving settles something old. Generative machines keep landing on the wrong side of that line.Thu, 04 May 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/evolution-information/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/evolution-information/Common knowledge says information is a byproduct of life. The reverse is closer to true — we are not its creators but its outcome.Sun, 23 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/dangers-future/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/dangers-future/The Ford Nucleon, the VPL DataGlove and the 2008 housing crash have one thing in common: assumptions about the future, driven by hype.Tue, 11 Apr 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/outside-frame/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/outside-frame/Every image simplifies, biases and omits. Understanding a complex subject means looking past the edges of the frame.Thu, 26 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/you-cant-predict-future/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/you-cant-predict-future/Every January brings a flood of predictions that fare about as well as a coin flip. Innovation is a creative act, not a predictive one.Thu, 12 Jan 2023 00:00:00 GMThttps://chrisconiglio.com/essays/simplicity-bias/https://chrisconiglio.com/essays/simplicity-bias/Simplicity bias is the pull toward views that fit a clean narrative rather than views that are accurate. It may cost us more than confirmation bias does.Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:00:00 GMT