Essays
The Journal253 essays
Long-form writing on AI, philosophy, psychology, and systems thinking.
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Memory, retrieval, and the externalization of knowledge: From Socrates to vector databases
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Christian Universalism and the Ethics of Open Source
Christian universalism asserts that grace extends to all. Open source asserts that code should be available to all. Both face the same challenge: sustainability requires shared obligation, not individual sacrifice.
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The Architect’s Notebook: System Design Begins With Writing
Writing design documents before code leads to faster delivery and fewer defects. Clear architecture emerges from clear prose, not the other way around.
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SEC Filing Processing as Data Engineering Microcosm
SEC EDGAR filings hold every core data engineering challenge in miniature: schema evolution, semi-structured extraction, and source-of-truth design.
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The SOPs That Survive: What Makes Them Standard
Most SOPs are not followed as written. The ones that survive are written by practitioners, kept short, built around decision points, and updated recently.
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The AI Ethics Officer Role Is a Systems Design Problem
AI ethics officers fail when positioned as compliance gatekeepers. The role succeeds when restructured as a cross-functional architecture position embedded in engineering.
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Data Privacy Is Infrastructure, Not Policy
Privacy must be built, not written. Replacing policy documents with six engineering controls clearly cut privacy violations in high-volume AI systems.
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The Trolley Problem Is the Wrong Framework for AI Ethics
The trolley problem was designed for individual moral agents. AI systems are sociotechnical institutions. Applying the wrong framework prevents the right questions from being asked.
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Popper’s Falsifiability and Your A/B Test
A hypothesis that cannot fail is not a hypothesis. Popper's falsifiability criterion reveals why most A/B tests produce confirmation, not knowledge.
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Ethics of AI in Healthcare Demands Systems Thinking
Model-focused audits miss most of the ethical risks in clinical AI, which live in alert workflows, staffing and data quality. Healthcare AI ethics demands systems thinking across EHR integration, clinician workflow, consent infrastructure, and failure cascading.