About
I write about what we know — and what we don’t — about artificial intelligence, from the algorithms underneath to the philosophical questions on top.
More than 6,800 engineers, researchers, scientists, and curious readers subscribe to think through these questions with me. If you want to understand AI past the hype and below the surface — and you don’t mind a little math, a little history, and the occasional rant along the way — you’re in the right place.
Who I am
I’m a full-time college professor and researcher, working at the intersection between artificial intelligence and formal systems. PhD, two decades of teaching, one too many side projects.
I just finished my first book — Mostly Harmless AI — and I’m currently writing several more in early access: The Science of Computation, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Graphs, and How to Train Your Chatbot. There’s also The Algorithm Codex, a growing pay-what-you-want collection of essays on the most beautiful algorithms ever designed. They all live at store.apiad.net — and if you want all of them in one go, the Computist Compendium bundles everything together.
On top of writing, I maintain a long string of open-source projects: AI tools, web frameworks, Python libraries, and assorted cool toys. They all live on my GitHub.
Half the time I’m proving things; the other half I’m writing them down so others can use them. This newsletter is where those two halves meet.
Start here
If this is your first time, the three posts that best capture what this newsletter is about:
The Four Fallacies of Modern AI — what we keep getting wrong about what AI is and isn’t
The Insurmountable Problem of Formal Reasoning in LLMs — why language models can’t reason the way we hope they can, and what that means
The Most Beautiful Algorithms Ever Designed — a very opinionated tour of the ideas I keep coming back to
Read those, and if they don’t land, this probably isn’t the newsletter for you. If they do, the archive has five years of more like them.
What you’ll get
Three or four posts a week, organized into sections you can subscribe to individually if you want:
🤖 Mostly Harmless AI — deep dives into what AI can and can’t do, and where the field is going
🧠 The Science of Computation — algorithms, data structures, theory, the ideas that make computing what it is
💻 Coding for Nerds — practical, technical, from beginner to expert
✒️ Essays — opinionated takes on science, education, society, and everything else
💡 Philosophy — the bigger questions that sit underneath all of the above
Plus an occasional Sunday note — This Week at The Computist Journal — on what shipped, what’s coming next, and what I’m building or stuck on.
All articles are free, forever
I’ve had the incredible fortune of receiving a world-class education for free. Writing this newsletter is my humble way of paying some of that back. Every essay, every tutorial, every deep dive — free, for everyone, always.
Why upgrade to paid
If the articles are free, what does a paid subscription get you?
Everything else I make.
For $7/month or $70/year, paid subscribers get:
Every book I’ve ever published, free, forever. A 100%-off code, refreshed continuously, that covers Mostly Harmless AI, The Algorithm Codex, the Compendium, and every book I publish from this point onward. At current prices that’s well over $200 worth of material, and it grows every month.
Early access to book drafts as PDFs, often months before public release. Chapters arrive in your inbox as I finish them — half-edited, sometimes rough, always the latest thinking.
A weekly Friday digest with what shipped, what’s coming next week, and an open AMA thread. Ask me anything; I’ll answer.
Prioritized attention in comments, chat, and Office Hours.
Founding members lock all of the above in for life — pay once, never pay again.
If you’re a professional software engineer or researcher, you can almost certainly expense the subscription to your employer. I’m happy to help you draft the request email.
How to participate
I write for you. So I’m always interested in what you think.
Every post has a comments section at the bottom — or just reply to the email
There’s a chat in the Substack app for ongoing conversations
And there’s Notes, where I share what I’m reading, thinking, and building between posts
Ready?
Hit subscribe and let’s see where this goes. If you’re not sure yet, browse the archive — I’d rather you find me through one post that matters than sign up on a hunch.
And if you think someone in your life would enjoy reading this stuff, please share. Nothing makes a writer happier than a recommendation that came from a reader, not an algorithm.
— Alejandro
