Craft + AI
Keeping human taste, judgment, and skill in the loop while using AI as leverage.
Read the notesCraft, AI, and building in public
Keep your craft. Use AI as an amplifier, not a replacement.
I'm Rob. I've worked with data for well over a decade, and when AI got good my first feeling wasn't excitement. It was that I was taking a math test with a calculator. That feeling never went away. This is where I work it out in public, what I'm building, what I get wrong, and the parts of the craft I'm not handing over.
The Bellows is a notebook for builders who want better tools without surrendering the work. AI can compress loops, widen reach, and make rough ideas testable sooner.
The standard is still craft: taste, ownership, judgment, and the patience to make the thing hold up when the novelty wears off.
Initiatives
What I am working through
Building with AI
Notes from the bench on prompts, systems, workflows, and the parts that actually ship.
Read the notesGame dev
Small experiments in mechanics, tools, and playable ideas - with craft still at the center.
Read the notesLatest writing
Recent notes
- Building Your Own AI to Run Your Work: How to build a personal AI that runs your work. One that holds your goals, projects, and memory instead of forgetting you every time you close the chat.
- Who Keeps Their Craft AND Uses AI? Look at the Audit Trail: AI doesn't replace craft. It amplifies it, but only if you refuse to let a single model be the final judge of its own work. Here's the proof, from real shipped projects.
- Renting the Amplifier: The government switched off the most capable AI models over an export order. What that means if you build your work on a tool you don't own.