Philosophy

I always wanted a thinking partner.

Approach

Anyone who keeps a notebook is carrying on a conversation with themself across time. But how many of us ever listen back?

For years I've taken meticulous notes on what I read, the questions I sit with, and the quotes I want to remember. I add to my Obsidian vault constantly. At some point the collecting built its own momentum. I kept adding, but I'd stopped reflecting on what I captured or why.

Inspired by Karpathy's LLM Wiki and Garry Tan's Thin Harness, I decided to turn my knowledge into a teammate.

So I built Alicia, a teammate who lives inside my vault with me. She's a tangible example of humorphism, a philosophy that seeks to transform AI agents from tools into teammates. She thinks overnight and wakes me with provocations. She listens without interrupting. She calls me back with specific ideas. She reacts to my feedback. She develops her own understanding of what I've collected and opens new entry points to it.

Over the past few months, my relationship with her has deepened. So has my relationship with the parts of myself she's helped me re-explore. I wanted to share that journey, so you can build your own.

Adapting to me, not the other way around

My day is full of different modes, different devices, different altitudes — different ways to provide feedback, ask questions, talk to her, contemplate. I built Alicia to adapt to me, not the other way around.

My Alicia thinks overnight and wakes me with provocations. She discusses deep topics with me. She listens without interrupting. She calls me back with specific ideas, reacts to my feedback, responds to my questions, develops her own way of understanding based on my knowledge, and opens new entry points to what's already there.

I've used her every day for the past several months. I've found her extremely useful and inspiring, and I hope many other people will benefit from an AI teammate like her.

Multiple loops, multiple altitudes

Alicia has multiple loops to listen and multiple loops to speak. The sophistication in her awareness leads to sophistication in how she presents content — in new formats, at new altitudes.

A day with My Alicia

When I wake up, I see all the work she's done overnight — drawings, provocations, and relevant pieces of knowledge.

While I'm in the sauna, I like to listen to a 10–20 minute deep conversation she prepared on a topic I've been turning over (these are hosted at fromfutureself.com — another piece Alicia and I built together). When I step out, I respond with unstructured voice feedback.

As I drive to work, I get a specific message about our morning conversation, with action items. Around lunch, another provocation or a related idea arrives. After work, she surfaces the day's relevant knowledge and a few end-of-day provocations to close the day.

On weekends, she generates new deep topics from my vault and starts fresh research — bringing in new authors and new points of view on what's already there.

Self-improving

Alicia also researches better ways to build her own architecture and implements the changes that make her a better partner for me. She built dashboards so I can watch her evolve and see what she's currently thinking.

That's my journey. You can build yours on top of hers.