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Master AI in 3 Steps: Monitor, Aggregate, and Experiment
Look you’re probably not going to like my answer but I guarantee that if you follow the steps i tell you…. You will get at least 10x better at AI (depending on where you’re starting) Here are the steps: 1. Monitor the situation This step is actually very dangerous. If you’re starting knowing nothing about ai, then a good place to start is by looking up the news, keeping up with what's going on etc. For example today around 500 people at Google sent a letter to (congress… i think? Idk it was somewhere in government) and they were basically saying that if Google partnered with the government that could lead to mass surveillance and they didn’t want that to happen. Then Google partnered with the Pentagon. Now… does that really matter? Yeah, kinda. If you know AI can be used for mass surveillance, why can’t it be used to surveil yourself and track everything about you? Or your employees? And give you tips on how to get better? Thats just one example. Another good one is that GBT 5.5 and Opus 4.7 dropped last week. If you’re a normie you probably didn’t know that… which is fine but if you want to get good at using ai you have to atleast know whats going on. So why is this dangerous? Well, you’ll pretty easily get addicted. (this happens at every step lol) Some people end up trying to monitor the situation and end up spending all day trying out new tools, worrying about what’s next, keeping up with everything. I mean this space moves VERY fast and there’s a lot to go through. One week Claude is the best, another it’s ChatGPT. Hence my second tip 2 use a news aggregator If you try to keep up with twitter, redddit, news and all of that… you will be spending 40 a week looking at (mostly) alot of garbage you probably cant use. Do you care about what open source models are coming out? Probably not because you probably dont have a super expensive computer. And that’s just one example of many different useless rabbit holes you can dive deep down but wont actually get any value from. The solution is following people who talk about AI but not EVERYTHING. I’ve put together a few newsletters, youtube channels, twitter accounts that you can follow and have a look at. (at the bottom) You only really need to spend an hour a week on this. 3 actually try the tools These tips I'm giving you are like a burger. I’ve given you the cheese, and the buns… which are important (after all the burger wont work without them) but this is the meat. The patty The vegan blob 🤮 What i’m trying to say is that none of this will actually work if you don’t try the tools. And i get it, “if you want to get better at AI, just use AI” (doesn’t exactly sound like life changing advice) I did give you those channels and they will tell you how to use the AI but… At the end of the day… How do you get better at riding a bike? Being an artist? You can get all the tips and channels and whatever, but the only real way you’re going to have leverage in ai is by using it. THink of something that takes up your day. That you’re annoyed you even have to do, but you HAVE to do it. Try to get ai to do it You’d be surprised. It might not get everything right but it’ll differently make something easier. Then try it for another thing And another. And by the time you’ve tried everything, you’ll probably be much better at using ai and you’ll have a much easier time working. Hope this helps. Happy to answer any questions if anyone actually got this far 😂
AI Tool Locus: Autonomous Business Operations
This sub has seen enough "AI can now do X" posts to have a finely tuned radar for what's real and what's a demo that falls apart the moment someone actually uses it. So I'll skip the hype and just tell you what we built and where the edges are. The core problem we were solving wasn't any individual capability. Generating copy is solved. Building websites is solved. Running ads is mostly solved. The unsolved problem was coherent autonomous decision making across all of those systems simultaneously without a human acting as the integration layer between them. That's what we spent most of our time on. Locus Founder takes someone from idea to fully operational business without them touching a single tool. The system scopes the business, builds the infrastructure, sources products, writes conversion optimized copy, and then runs paid acquisition across Google, Facebook and Instagram autonomously. Continuously. Not as a one time setup but as an ongoing operation that monitors performance and adjusts without being told to. The honest version of where AI actually performs well in this system and where it doesn't: It's genuinely good at the build layer. Storefront generation, copy, pricing structure, initial ad creative, coherent and fast in a way that would have been impossible two years ago. The operations layer is more complicated. Autonomous ad optimization works well within normal parameters. The judgment calls that fall outside those parameters, unusual market conditions, supplier issues, platform policy edge cases, are still the places where the system makes decisions a human would immediately recognize as wrong. That gap between capability and judgment is the most interesting unsolved problem in what we're building and probably in the agent space generally right now. We got into YCombinator this year. Opening 100 free beta spots this week before public launch. Free to use, you keep everything you make. For people in this sub specifically, less interested in the "wow AI can do that" reaction and more interested in people who want to actually stress test where the judgment breaks down. Beta form: [https://forms.gle/nW7CGN1PNBHgqrBb8](https://forms.gle/nW7CGN1PNBHgqrBb8) Where do you think autonomous business judgment actually gets solved and what does that look like?
Community-Driven Ratings for 120+ AI Coding Tools on Tolop
a few weeks ago I posted about building a library that tracks 120+ AI coding tools by how long their free tier actually lasts. the response was good but the most common feedback was "your scores are subjective." fair point. so I rebuilt the rating system. you can now sign in with Google and vote on any tool directly. the scores update in real time based on actual user votes, not just my personal assessment. if you think I rated something wrong, you can now do something about it instead of just commenting. also shipped dark mode because apparently I was the only person who thought the default looked fine. **what Tolop actually is if you're new:** every AI tool claims to be free. most aren't, or at least not for long. Tolop tracks the real limits: how many completions, how many requests, how long until you hit the wall under light use vs heavy use vs agentic sessions. it also flags the tools where "free" means you're still paying Anthropic or OpenAI through your own API key. 120+ tools across coding assistants, browser builders, CLI agents, frameworks, self-hosted tools, local models, and a new niche tools category for single-purpose utilities that don't fit anywhere else. **a few things the data shows that I found genuinely interesting:** * Gemini Code Assist offers 180,000 free completions per month. GitHub Copilot Free offers 2,000. same category, 90x difference * several of the most popular tools (Cline, Aider, Continue) are free to install but require paid API keys, so "free" is misleading * self-hosted tools have by far the most generous free tiers because the cost is on your hardware, not a server would genuinely appreciate votes on tools you've actually used, the more real usage data behind the scores, the more useful the ratings get for everyone. [tolop.space](http://tolop.space) :- no account needed to browse, Google login to vote.
Gate AI: Visual Workspace for Dev Ticket Management
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Lumara Space: AI Tool for Space Exploration
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Meta's Space Solar Power Deal with Overview Energy
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Why People Turn to AI for Art: A Deeper Look
Why do people use AI for art? Before anything, this isn’t about debating whether AI art is “real” art. I’ve already shared my personal take on my last post. This is about something simpler and, I think, more human: why people are drawn to it in the first place. I’ll be honest. I used to mock people who used AI for art. I saw it as a shortcut, a lack of effort, even a lack of creativity. It felt easy to dismiss. But as someone who creates in a different medium, writing novels, I started wondering about the motivation behind it. Not the output, but the “why.” After spending time digging into discussions, patterns, and people’s own explanations, I started noticing something deeper. For many, it ties back to how they grew up. A lot of people didn’t have the freedom to explore creativity as kids. Academic pressure, strict expectations, or environments where only “practical” success mattered often pushed curiosity and artistic exploration aside. For some, even trying to pursue something creative was discouraged or punished. That kind of upbringing doesn’t just disappear. It follows people into adulthood. You end up with individuals who feel disconnected from creativity, not because they lack imagination, but because they were never given space to develop it. Trying to learn a creative skill later in life can feel risky, even uncomfortable, especially when it’s tied to the idea that it might not lead to financial stability. Then something like AI tools shows up. Suddenly, there’s a way to express ideas visually without years of training, without the fear of “wasting time,” and without revisiting that pressure. For some, it’s the first time they can take something from their imagination and actually see it exist. That experience can feel new, almost like rediscovering something they never got to have. So when you see a flood of AI-generated art online, it’s not just about technology. For many people, it’s about access. It’s about finally having a low barrier to expressing something internal. That doesn’t mean everyone using AI has the same background or reasons. But reducing it to “laziness” or “lack of creativity” misses a much bigger picture. In some cases, making fun of people for using these tools ends up hitting something more personal than we realize. Curious to hear what others think. What do you see as the main reasons people turn to AI for art?
Polynya: Turn Postgres into AI Workspaces
Polynya: Turn PostgreSQL into AI Workspaces In the rapidly evolving world of data management, organizations are continuously seeking innovative ways to harness …