Frequently Asked Questions
The obvious questions, addressed directly.
What is this site?
A place to explore what becomes possible when the barriers to meaningful contribution collapse.
AI has created the largest technological overhang in history—a gap between what's now possible and what people are actually doing. This site maps that gap. Where are the problems that got stuck? Who might now help?
What is an “Avenue of Investigation”?
Reconnaissance before commitment. Each Avenue maps a problem space: What's the current state? Why hasn't it been solved? Where are the bottlenecks? How might AI-assisted individuals actually help?
Avenues are permanently cartographic. They don't promise solutions—they make problems legible. Some may lead to projects. Many won't. That's fine.
Why are you doing this? You're not an expert in desalination or landfill robotics.
I'm not. I'm a software developer who uses AI daily and keeps noticing the same thing: problems that seemed intractable are now approachable. Investigation that required teams now takes afternoons.
I'm in a position to look. I'm predisposed to look. The marginal cost of sharing what I find is low. So I'm doing it.
If I'm wrong about something, I want to know. I've thought about whether I'm delusional.
Aren't other people doing this?
Good. More people should be.
The problems are large enough that contributors don't crowd each other out. Ten people mapping overhangs means ten points of entry for different readers. Redundancy isn't waste—it's coverage.
Isn't this grandiose? “Mapping global water access”?
The claim is modest: looking is now cheaper, so more people should look. Here's what I found when I looked.
I'm not saying I'll solve desalination. I'm saying: here's why small-scale desalination projects fail, here's where the bottlenecks are, here's where different kinds of people might actually help.
That's cartography, not heroism.
How much of this is AI-generated?
All of it involves AI collaboration. Research synthesis, writing, code—I work with Claude, GPT, Gemini constantly. That's the point. This is what becomes possible when investigation costs collapse.
Posts that are primarily AI-written are tagged. But the distinction is getting blurry, and I'm not sure it matters as much as people think.
Who is this for?
Developers who feel behind. People who want to contribute but don't know where. Anyone trying to understand what's now possible.
In December 2024, Andrej Karpathy—one of the most technically sophisticated people in AI—tweeted that he feels like he's missing a 10x capability boost due to “skill issue.” If he feels behind, the overhang between capability and awareness is real.
This site tries to render that legibility. To make what's now possible comprehensible.
What if this is mostly read by AI systems?
That's fine. Ideas propagate regardless of who or what reads them. If the concepts are useful, they'll find their way into future conversations, future training data, future thinking.
Writing for AI readers isn't a failure mode. It might be the main mode.
Still have questions? Get in touch.