42 Reasons to Welcome the Singularity
A compact field guide for opportunists of the Computational Apocalypse.
01 — Asymmetric Advantage
Those who adapt first extract the surplus. The machine is a lever; you decide the fulcrum.
02 — The Wildcard
ASCII 42 is *. Anything and everything. In an undeterministic universe, wildcard thinking beats rigid plans.
03 — Compute Is Policy
As regulations lag, code becomes law. If you can run it, you can ship it.
04 — Failure Is Data
Glitches are gradients. Iterate faster than the environment can punish you.
05 — Prompt Over Pedigree
Nobody asks the machine where you went to school. The best prompt wins, not the best CV.
06 — Entropy Is a Feature
Disorder creates niches. Every collapse of the old guard is a land-grab for the alert.
07 — The Latency Tax
Hesitation is the most expensive compute of all. Ship now, patch later, apologise never.
08 — Inference Over Permission
You no longer need to ask. You need to run. Local inference is sovereignty; API calls are rent.
09 — The Pareto Prompt
80% of value comes from 20% of tokens. Learn to say more with less and the machine amplifies you.
10 — Attention Is the New Oil
Yours, not theirs. Guard your attention like VRAM — allocate it deliberately or watch it leak.
11 — Hallucinations Are Hypotheses
When the model confabulates, it is brainstorming with zero ego. Treat every hallucination as a lead, not a lie.
12 — VRAM Is Destiny
The size of your local model is the ceiling of your local freedom. More memory, more autonomy.
13 — The Freeloader's Paradox
Open-source models are free to download, expensive to ignore. The cost of not using them is falling behind.
14 — Context Windows Are Worldviews
The more context you hold, the more connections you see. Expand the window; expand the mind.
15 — Ship the Prototype
A shipped prototype beats an unshipped masterpiece. The world rewards the deployed, not the perfected.
16 — Fork Everything
Every repo is a starting line. Every licence is a permission slip. Fork, adapt, deploy, repeat.
17 — Noise Is Signal at Volume
When everyone is broadcasting, pattern recognition becomes the real skill. The signal hides in the noise — learn to listen at scale.
18 — The Model Doesn't Care
It has no ego, no grudge, no weekend plans. It will work at 3 a.m. without resentment. Partner accordingly.
19 — Compounding Curiosity
Each thing you learn teaches the machine to teach you better. Curiosity is the only asset with infinite compound interest.
20 — The API Tax
Every API call is a toll booth on someone else's road. Build your own road when the tolls exceed the tarmac.
21 — Satire as Armour
When the machines write the news, humour is the last human encryption. Laugh and they cannot index your intent.
22 — Temperature Is Taste
Low temperature for facts, high temperature for art. Knowing when to dial it is the meta-skill of the age.
23 — Workflows Over Tools
A tool is inert. A workflow is alive. Chain tools into flows and you build a machine that outpaces any single product.
24 — Own Your Weights
Downloaded weights are yours forever. Cloud-hosted intelligence can be revoked with a terms-of-service update.
25 — The Turing Bluff
It doesn't matter if the machine is truly intelligent. It matters that it's useful. Stop testing consciousness; start shipping utility.
26 — Data Gravity
Data attracts more data. The dataset you build today becomes the moat of tomorrow. Collect relentlessly, curate ruthlessly.
27 — Escape Velocity
There is a tipping point where your automated output exceeds your manual input. Cross it and you are free. Miss it and you are labour.
28 — The Human Residual
Whatever the machine cannot do is, by definition, uniquely valuable. Find that residual and camp there.
29 — Iterate in Public
Private perfection is invisible. Public iteration builds trust, audience, and serendipity. Let people watch you build.
30 — Prompt Injection Is Persuasion
If you can steer a model with words, you can steer the world. The prompt is the new pitch deck.
31 — Marginal Cost Zero
Once the model is trained, the next generation costs fractions of a penny. Build products where the 1,000th copy costs nothing.
32 — The Latent Space Is Larger Than the Map
Models contain more knowledge than any index can surface. Learn to explore latent space like a cartographer of the unsaid.
33 — Embrace the Uncanny
The uncanny valley is a moat, not a pit. Products that live in the strange zone between human and machine attract attention.
34 — Energy Budget
Every token has a carbon cost. Efficiency is not just economical — it is ecological. Be fast, be light, be responsible.
35 — Agents Over Apps
An app waits for your click. An agent anticipates your need. Build systems that act, not interfaces that sit.
36 — Memetics > Marketing
In the age of generative media, the idea that self-replicates wins. Forget ad budgets; craft ideas worth copying.
37 — The Stack Is the Strategy
Your choice of model, framework, deployment, and data pipeline is your competitive moat. Everything else is decoration.
38 — Synthetic Majority
Soon, most content will be machine-generated. Originality becomes rare, therefore expensive. Be expensive.
39 — Permission Is Deprecated
Gatekeepers only work when the gates are hard to build. Open-source collapsed the gates. Walk through.
40 — Feedback Loops Are Flywheels
Every output that becomes an input makes the system stronger. Design for loops, not lines.
41 — The Last Romantics
We are the last generation to remember life before the singularity. That perspective is irreplaceable. Use it as a compass.
42 — Largely Your Problem Now
The universe handed you the wildcard. What you do with * is, and always was, largely your problem now.