Maggie Appleton

Experienced designer Maggie Appleton talks about designing for AI products and LLMs, challenges of interface with LLMs, technical literacy improvement strategies, AI-native tools, redefining designer roles with AI advancements, cognitive vs generative AI focus, and more

Maggie Appleton is a product designer at Ought, an AI research lab that’s working on ways to scale open-ended thinking with machine learning. She’s also an advocate of sharing personal knowledge online. She publishes one of the best digital gardens I’ve seen, located at maggieappleton.com. In this conversation, we discuss the what, why, and how of digital gardening.Show notesMaggie AppletonMaggie Appleton on TwitterOught[Metaphors We Live](https://amzn.to/43q0eEj) By by George Lakoff and Mark JohnsonThe Expanding Dark Forest and Generative AI by Maggie AppletonGoffman’s Theory of Performance of the SelfErving Goffman: The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life by Adam D. BarnhartClifford Geertz - BritannicaSubstackWork with the garage door up by Andy MatuschakNiklas Luhmann - WikipediaChatGPTNicole van der Hoeven on Obsidian – The Informed LifeObsidianHacker NewsShow notes include Amazon affiliate links. We get a small commission for purchases made through these links.If you're enjoying the show, please rate or review us in Apple's podcast directory:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-informed-life/id1450117117?itsct=podcast_box&itscg=30200

Maggie Appleton, a Lead Design Engineer at Normalee, combines design, anthropology, and programming to enhance user experiences. She discusses how cultural factors influence technology interactions, particularly in the context of AI. The conversation tackles the digital divide and the role of AI in education, addressing fears and strategies for integrating AI tools into learning environments. Maggie also shares her thoughts on the complexities of advanced technologies and the potential of AI as a collaborative partner, advocating for deeper understanding in tech development.

This is a continuation of the conversation I had with Maggie previously: "The Dark Forest and Generative AI." We discuss why we write, versus why to use AI and LLMs to produce writing, and what effects that loss is likely to have. Discussed in this episode: Why do humans write? Writing is around 5,000 years old We mention a note-taking system called a "Zettelkasten" which I wrote about here Writing to our future selves How do we read? Science and philosophy as conversations On getting up to speed in conversation How much to read before we should write Who wants to read GPT outputs? Roland Barthes' "The Death of the Author" (1967) The deep link between cognition, action, perception The 4Es: embodied, embedded, enacted, extended (see: enactivism) Moravec's paradox Gwern Clerestory by ⁠⁠⁠Bryan Kam⁠⁠⁠ • Infrequent updates at ⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠ • All my work plus exclusive content at ⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠ Show notes https://pod.fo/e/1720c4

Creating software is typically done in text-based environments—but would programming be more accessible with graphical programming tools? Maggie joins Mark and Adam to talk about the relative success of Scratch, Shortcuts, and Zapier; how to make the abstract visible; embodied metaphors; and the false duality of artistic versus logical thinkers. Plus: how to make blinking lights for your Burning Man art installation. Discuss this episode in the Muse community Follow @MuseAppHQ on Twitter Show notes Maggie Appleton @mappletons egghead.io Centre for Computing History Pacific Pinball Museum Nintendo 64 the noughties or the aughts React Scratch Zapier, IFTTT, Integromat low-code / no-code Rocky’s Boots circuit diagrams DrScheme Origami Studio Muse memo on infinite canvas with Origami screenshot LabVIEW Logic Pro, Reason the environment in Logic iOS Shortcuts (née Workflow) console loggings end-user programming: embodiment VS Code, npm, Ruby on Rails, GraphQL, React hooks cultural anthropology Geroge Lakoff, Mark Johnson embodied metaphors Dan Abramov Just Javascript pointers in C Redux actions _why’s poignant guide to ruby Learnable Programming Edward Tufte, Visual Explanations, Beautiful Evidence Graphviz DOT graphs jigs in wordworking Unity episode with Geoffrey Litt Flutter, SwiftUI XState Apparatus direct manipulation Dreamweaver Interface Builder Hacker News folk wisdom on visual programming Adafruit circuit debouncing with capacitors walk uphill in the snow Visual Programming Codex Whole Code Catalog

Maggie Appleton, a designer, anthropologist, and developer, explores exciting concepts like 'Barefoot Developers', who seek more control over their software tools. She discusses how local-first technology enhances user experiences and personalizes programming for communities. The role of AI in developing accessible software is examined, along with its potential for improving privacy. Maggie emphasizes the importance of user ownership in creating tailored solutions, advocating for a future where everyday users can innovate without barriers.

Maggie Appleton discusses working with language models, vetting AI responses, Soggoth meme, using Discord as UI, boss wanting AI, and calling her blog a digital garden. Topics include language models for data extraction, generative image models in illustration, efficiency, and environmental impact, academic paper sourcing, and digital gardens for content evolution.

Maggie and swyx hosted a Clubhouse chat this weekend on Digital Gardens. Here are show notes for ongoing conversations so you can dig in further!Maggie’s garden: https://maggieappleton.com/ Swyx’s garden: https://www.swyx.io/ideas, http://github.com/sw-yx/spark-joy (and other repos)Comments and extra questions welcome!## RecordingYouTube Recording Here and Commentable Transcript is Here!This podcast audio was automatically edited for pauses and filler words via Descript. It gets a little choppy about 45mins in, but otherwise seems ok?## Things we talked aboutNikita’s Everything I Know garden: https://wiki.nikitavoloboev.xyz/Maggie's list of Digital Gardeners: https://github.com/MaggieAppleton/digital-gardenersPenn Course on the Literature of Success: https://apps.wharton.upenn.edu/syllabi/?course=LGST227 Devon Zuegel on Epistemic Statuses: https://devonzuegel.com/post/epistemic-statuses-are-lazy-and-that-is-a-good-thing Digital Garden Terms of Service: https://www.swyx.io/digital-garden-tos Neil Postman: The Medium is the Metaphor: https://people.wou.edu/~visuanod/visuano_amusing_ourselves_to_death.pdf Amusing Ourselves to Death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death Building A Second Brain: https://www.buildingasecondbrain.com/ Andy Matuschak: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes Gatsby Theme Andy: https://github.com/aravindballa/gatsby-theme-andy Transclusion: https://maggieappleton.com/transcopyright-dreamsNonlinear tools for thought:Roam of course :)Muse App https://museapp.com/Kosmik App https://lithium.paris/ Google Docs as Collaborative Digital GardensChris Paik’s Frameworks Google Doc (tweet, doc) has ongoing comments that help shape the gardenSwyx on Webmentions: https://www.swyx.io/twitter-metacommentary/ Swyx Three Strikes Rule: https://www.swyx.io/three-strikes/ Tiago Forte on Progressive Summarization: https://fortelabs.co/blog/progressive-summarization-a-practical-technique-for-designing-discoverable-notes/Drawing tools: https://excalidraw.com/, https://miro.com/, https://figma.com/ How To Create Luck: https://swyx.io/create_luck Lisa Hardy’s Hyperfine Village concept

Maggie Appleton shares her journey into AI tool design and digital gardening. Discussion on living in the AI era positively. Concepts sponsorship for sketchnoting. Maggie's work, tips, and tools shared. Experiments with GIFs and interactive essays. Community acknowledgment and support.

Expert Maggie Appleton discusses the progress of AI in writing and search engines. Topics include perplexity, Exa, IFS therapy app refract.space, Philosophy Discord, and Telegram channels.