The Absent-Minded Professor

The Absent-Minded Professor

Home
Podcast
Notes
Recommended Scenes
Talks
Website
Archive
About

Keepers of the Light

Children's books are for all of us
READ THE LATEST
Get new posts delivered to your inbox each week

Recent posts

View all
An E-bike For The Mind
E-bikes and what they can teach us about AI
 • 
Josh Brake
1
Make College Contemplative Again
We must help our students build habits of contemplation
 • 
Josh Brake
10
Reconstituting The Conditions Of Human Existence
"Mere" technological entities shape social and moral life
 • 
Josh Brake
3
Love Being Made Visible
A letter to the class of 2025
 • 
Josh Brake
3
The Problem With Building What People Want
We think we’re serving the rider, but we’re really feeding the elephant
 • 
Josh Brake
4
Mental Models Matter
The importance of understanding LLMs as flexible interpolative functions from prompts to continuations
 • 
Josh Brake
6
Engineering Leaders for a Better World
Here's the program I want to build to cultivate them.
 • 
Josh Brake
7
Productive and Parasitic Friction
Technology does not discriminate between them. We should.
 • 
Josh Brake
2
How a Certain Scheme to Improve the Human Condition Will Fail
The intellectual and moral hazards of generative AI as understood through stories of squirrels in shredders and forest death
 • 
Josh Brake
2
The Absent-Minded Professor
The Absent-Minded Professor
Technology, education, and human flourishing. All through the lens of a prototyping mindset.
Recommendations
View all 19
One Useful Thing
One Useful Thing
Ethan Mollick
Cosmos Institute
Cosmos Institute
Cosmos Institute
Eight by Seven
Eight by Seven
Timothy Burke
The Biblioracle Recommends
The Biblioracle Recommends
John Warner
The Healthier Hustle
The Healthier Hustle
Mary Chris Escobar
© 2025 Josh Brake
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture