I'm working at the Collective Intelligence Project as Founding Engineer, helping build infrastructure to democratize AI development globally. CIP's mission is to ensure AI benefits the many, not the few - embedding collective intelligence directly into AI development through partnerships with frontier labs and governments. Follow CIP on Bluesky.
The recent past: After I completed my book in 2019, I needed a break from tech and started a degree in paramedicine with St George's University. However, in December 2019, I suffered a stroke which has left me disabled and unable to continue that tangent of life. My experience of this brain injury and the subsequent challenges – not to be taken lightly – have helped to channel my ambitions and regulate a gentle return to technology. I am most lured by the scale and high leverage that can be achieved by tiny powerful ideas. Some noteworthy projects from my past, if you're interested:
xmllm
xmllm is a JavaScript utility that makes it easy to get structured data from LLMs, using XML as a resilient intermediate format. It's designed to be more forgiving and natural than JSON-based approaches, supporting streaming and working with a wide variety of LLM providers. Try the live demo or check out the model compliance dashboard.
"Clean Code in JavaScript"
A few years ago I wrote a book about "Clean Code in JavaScript". It's a slightly opinionated and heavy exploration of what we even mean by "clean code", but oriented towards JavaScript and its surrounding eco-system. I was always bothered by the elusive fuzziness of the term "clean code", and wanted to reflect on things I'd learned in the previous decade. Buy it here: "Clean Code in JavaScript"
Historic Code
I've contributed to various open-source projects and created a bunch of useful utilities over the years. Take a look on Github. I've also written blog posts ranging topics from JavaScript to more opinionated pieces on software architecture. You can find an archive of these posts here. I've also contributed heavily to Stack Overflow (110k+ reputation) in the past.
Disability
My recent brain injury has left me reflecting on the ableism normalized throughout workplaces and wider society. I am, as such, actively trying to advocate more for disability rights and topics like chronic illness and mental health. Please read my article, "Disability: Models, Cultures, Perceptions and the Path to Inclusivity.
A Book Like Foo
A Book Like Foo is a book recommendation platform. It will discover books tailored to specific tastes and themes, selected from hundreds of thousands of titles. It builds recommendation from a graph database containing millions of books and co-affections between those books. It uses a modified collaborative filtering approach giving (sometimes) surprisingly solid results. Also see its cousin Love Your Shelf and Break The Bubble.
"Parse The Bill"
ParseTheBill makes proposed legislation (parliamentary bills) in the UK more accessible for engaged citizens and advocacy groups who want to stay informed but don't have time to read full legal texts. It's very experimental. Read more about its implementation here.
Pippy: A Disability Chatbot
Pippy is an AI chatbot that helps disabled UK residents navigate and advocate for their disability needs in workplaces, schools, and social contexts. It also helps people fill out their PIP (disability benefit) forms and discover resources, charities and communities.
Public Projects & Products:
tiptap.chat - Simple customizable embeddable AI chatbots