# Black&White > Essays by Thomas Petersen. Plain-text copies of every essay. The pages people read stay at the canonical URLs. ## Essays - [If They Pace, We Lose.](https://000fff.org/essays/if-they-pace-we-lose.md): Open source, not super intelligence is what the frontier labs fear. While everyone and their mother from one day to another, have become worried about the lack of AI superintelligence alignment, there… - [Buzz Projects](https://000fff.org/essays/buzz-projects.md): Software development tools are fragmented in ways the work itself is not. A bug report lands in one tool. The discussion happens in another. The fix lives on a branch somewhere else.… - [Permissionless Innovation — Beyond the Hype & Doom of AI.](https://000fff.org/essays/permissionless-innovation-beyond-the-hype-doom-of-ai.md): urge anyone who wants to build a career even closely related to the knowledge industry to commit to what is happening right now and make AI serve you rather than being at… - [The Church of Scientism](https://000fff.org/essays/the-church-of-scientism.md): How religious beliefs have taken over the science institutions. Neither a young Einstein, Bohr nor Feynman would have gotten grants if they had been around today. None of them would have passed… - [Science-Fiction is the new Non-Fiction](https://000fff.org/essays/science-fiction-is-the-new-non-fiction.md): Replace your library of academic books by highly respected professors, with a treasure throve of wild ideas about how to think about, utilize and navigate in a world where AI favors the… - [Your AI Strategy Have a 1/9/90 Problem.](https://000fff.org/essays/your-ai-strategy-have-a-1-9-90-problem.md): Why most companies report they don't feel they get as much value from AI as they would like and what to do about it. There are few discussions as consequential for companies… - [My 2025 Predictions](https://000fff.org/essays/my-2025-predictions.md): What a year. What an absolutely crazy year. At times, it felt like acting in a movie without a script—so much happened, it’s hard to even know where to begin. Yet begin… - [So how accurate were my 2024 predictions? Lets find out.](https://000fff.org/essays/so-how-accurate-were-my-2024-predictions-lets-find-out.md): Last Friday, I attended a Christmas lunch at the Danish-American Chamber of Commerce held at the Harvard Club and was asked if I would say a few words about what I believe… - [My 2024 Predictions](https://000fff.org/essays/my-2024-predictions.md): As it has become tradition, I am once again putting my reputation on the line and sharing my thoughts and predictions about the year 2023 that has passed and the year 2024… - [Why everything you are being told about AGI and superintelligence is wrong.](https://000fff.org/essays/why-everything-you-are-being-told-about-agi-and-superintelligence-is-wrong.md): How a small vocal minority once again hijack power for their own gain and intellectual vanity to the detriment of humanity. There is an old saying: "Those who can, build, those who… - [My 2023 Predictions](https://000fff.org/essays/my-2023-predictions.md): After several requests to follow up on last year's predictions and now, as is tradition, it is time for some predictions for 2023. Before that, I would like to share some thoughts… - [Good Artists Steal, Great Artists Use AI](https://000fff.org/essays/good-artists-steal-great-artists-use-ai.md): I finally got some time to try one of the new text-to-image generators. Most people know about GPT-3 for text of course. Just give it at subject some context and GPT-3 will… - [Layer Zero, The Moral Case for Web3](https://000fff.org/essays/layer-zero-the-moral-case-for-web3.md): Do we really need Web3, Crypto and Blockchain? Recently a group of important voices have come out against Web3. These aren’t the usual technology adverse critics but rather voices that are in… - [My 2022 Predictions](https://000fff.org/essays/my-2022-predictions.md): I have been asked by a couple of people if I could make a few predictions for 2022. Something I have not done in the last few years for various reasons. Since… - [What no one knows about NFTs](https://000fff.org/essays/what-no-one-knows-about-nfts.md): By now most people know that one of the most powerful things about NFT’s is that they are digital items that behave like they are physical. What less people realize is the… - [There is no Shortage of Resources, Only a Lack of Knowledge](https://000fff.org/essays/there-is-no-shortage-of-resources-only-a-lack-of-knowledge.md): We often hear the claim that humans are destroying the planet through consumption, capitalism, energy usage, and impact on nature. This is wrong here's why. A couple of years ago, the documentary… - [#01 The Idea](https://000fff.org/essays/01-the-idea.md): Tiny Empire is a series of mini-essays about how to build a startup from your home. Getting ideas is easy… Getting ideas other people want to spend their time or money on… - [4 1/2 years at Square, whats next?](https://000fff.org/essays/4-1-2-years-at-square-whats-next.md): 5 years ago my (now) wife Sandra Septimius and I made a strategic decision to disrupt our little family and replace our comfortable and happy life in Copenhagen with a less certain… - [Why is Europe Failing To Create More Unicorns?](https://000fff.org/essays/why-is-europe-failing-to-create-more-unicorns.md): Out of 108 startups with a valuation of more than one billion dollars, 78 are from the US and only nine are from Europe. Whats going on? Before you read on: This… - [The Law of Laws](https://000fff.org/essays/the-law-of-laws.md): The law to end all laws “All laws are contextual. They have a middle, a beginning and end. They’re entirely valid as long as they last, i.e. as long as you can… - [The Problem With Problems](https://000fff.org/essays/the-problem-with-problems.md): A well known, but often overlooked avenue of exploring potential businesses, is to look for problems to solve. Society, mankind and organizations have all sorts of problems they are more than willing… - [One Aggregator to Rule them All - Or How to Think Like Facebook & Twitter](https://000fff.org/essays/how-to-think-like-facebook-and-twitter.md): Facebook and Twitter seems to be unbeatable and companies are feeling the pressure to establish themselves in the social space to get a piece of the traffic pie. But is the price… - [Anatomy of a Noob - Why your Mom Sucks at Computers](https://000fff.org/essays/anatomy-of-a-noob-why-your-mom-suck-at-computers.md): The words metaphor and intuitive are often used in UX. They are the metrics we use to judge the quality of a solution. But is this quality really as universal as we… - [The Ghost Protocol - Digital Identity for Immortals](https://000fff.org/essays/the-ghost-protocol-digital-identity-for-immortals.md): I admit that I am not the superstitious type. Superstitions have never resonated with me as my mind simply doesn't grasp the idea of something unnatural. It is, therefore, with some reluctance… - [Design Discussion Principles – How to get your client to love your design](https://000fff.org/essays/design-discussion-principles-how-to-get-your-client-to-love-your-design.md): I'm going to share with you a few of my principles to get clients to approve a design. As many designers know, discussing design with clients can be one of the most… - [The Power of Digital Ecosystems](https://000fff.org/essays/the-power-of-digital-ecoystems.md): When Sony introduced the PlayStation in 1994, it wasn’t at all obvious that they would be successful. Nintendo and Sega were already in fierce competition and, although their arena was the 16-bit… - [Developers are from Mars, Designers from Venus - A question of metaphors](https://000fff.org/essays/developers-are-from-mars-designers-from-venus-a-question-of-metaphors.md): Next to the relationship between man and woman, there’s probably no two groups of people who understand each other less than designers and developers. Yet there is very little literature about the… - [Mr. Brand Manager... Tear down this wall! - Re-branding Branding](https://000fff.org/essays/mr-brand-manager-tear-down-this-wall.md): We must evolve our understanding of branding. Too long have companies and their agencies been treating values as if they are merely words to play around with. In this next decade, discount… - [Slaves of the feed - This is not the realtime we've been looking for](https://000fff.org/essays/slaves-of-the-feed-this-is-not-the-realtime-weve-been-looking-for.md): Let’s start with what most people probably can agree. Information is accumulating online. The amount of available information is increasing at an exponential rate, therapist some say it doubles every second year.… - [Getting to the Customer - Why Everything You Think about User-Centred Design is Wrong](https://000fff.org/essays/getting-to-the-customer-why-everything-you-think-about-user-centred-design-is-wrong.md): Let me ask you a question. If you had an idea for a new hammer and you wanted to test it, which of the following ways do you think would yield you… - [A simple model for innovation](https://000fff.org/essays/a-simple-model-for-innovation.md): Finding the next big thing is probably one of the biggest challenges in the world of startups. Countless companies, entrepreneurs and VC’s spend a considerable amount of time plus money figuring out… - [Beyond Aesthetics – Design Tips for Startups](https://000fff.org/essays/beyond-aesthetics-design-tips-for-startups.md): Don't panic, this is not going to be a lecture on typography or what color palette you should use. It's not going to require you to have the latest Creative Suite from… - [What's in a name - Tips for naming your startup](https://000fff.org/essays/whats-in-a-name-tips-for-naming-your-startup.md): Finding the right name for your company can be a long an laborious if not even costly task. There are however a couple principles that can help you along. Back in the… - [Beware of the Box](https://000fff.org/essays/beware-of-the-box.md): Anyone in the creative industry knows and loves to receive this brief and most clients likes to provide it. Yet despite all the joy and good intentions, visit this three weeks later…