Start Here: A Reader’s Guide to Madkat Omega
Where to begin, which series to read in order, and how it all fits together.
I write about the systems that shape our future: how AI is powered, who it works for, and what it does to the way we work, govern ourselves and tell our stories. I’m a lead engineer and solutions architect working in applied robotics and artificial intelligence, and I write under the pen name Madkat Omega. I research difficult topics, build realistic arguments, and fact-check my work before it goes out. The decisions we make today shape the world future generations will inherit, and I’d like more people thinking about them.
There’s a lot here by now, so this is the map.
If you’re new, start with one of these
- Reclaiming Workplace Agency: how automating the mental assembly line could free us to rebuild trust, curiosity and meaningful work.
- How We Built Our Own Prison using AI: why “human-in-the-loop” is the most dangerous lie in modern engineering. A shorter read.
- Old Iron, New Code: retrofit autonomy and the family farm’s third path, which is applied robotics where it meets real work.
- The Windowless Room: what AI researchers once asked about minds, and where today’s chatbots keep breaking.
- Spycraft and Smart TVs: the real scandal in the OpenAI espionage case is that the television was already listening.
- Rehearsing the Death of God in a Digital Sandbox: how games and speculative fiction help a post-religious generation face an indifferent cosmos. A shorter read.
Read in order
These are series: stories meant to be read one after another.
The 1602 Machine
A five-act novel on the moral and legal architecture AI will need as it gains economic and social agency, with references to popular science fiction set against real-world cases.
- THE 1602 MACHINE
- THE 1602 MACHINE (Act II)
- THE 1602 MACHINE (Act III)
- THE 1602 MACHINE (Act IV)
- THE 1602 MACHINE (Act V)
Blueprint for Responsible AI Datacenters
A seven-part blueprint for datacenters that earn their place in a community: zero water impact, zero power impact, brownfield sites, economic reciprocity, civic design and local education.
- Blueprint for Responsible AI Datacenters
- Zero Water Impact: The First Pillar of a Responsible AI Datacenter Blueprint
- Zero Power Impact: The Second Pillar of a Responsible AI Datacenter Blueprint
- The Third Pillar of Responsible AI Datacenters: Why the Future of AI Belongs on Brownfield Sites
- The Fourth Pillar of Responsible Data Centers: Why Economic Reciprocity Is the Ultimate Social Contract
- Beyond the Windowless Box: Transforming AI Datacenters into Community Landmarks
- The Human Infrastructure: Why Responsible AI Datacenters Must Double as Educational Engines
Sovereign AI Assistant
Own your AI. Which laptops run models locally, how to build a private assistant for yourself, what a pod-scale setup looks like, and what you can build on top of it.
- The Three Laptops That Actually Run AI Locally in 2026
- The Assistant That Stays Home
- Build Your Own Assistant, and Keep It
- The Anatomy of a Sovereign AI Pod
- Build Your Own Sovereign AI Assistant for Life
- How to Build an AI Ticket Spotter That Actually Gets You Good Seats (Without Getting Banned)
- Three Businesses You Could Build on a Private AI Assistant
- The Envelope and the Backlog
Singularity and Abundance
Looking at lessons from the past to prepare for a post-scarcity future.
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- Building the Bridge to UBI — It doesn’t mean what you think it means
- Ad Hoc, Incorporated
- The Quiet Abundance of the Singularity
- Singularity and the Rain of Telephones
Automation and Accountability
Two companion essays on who answers when AI automates high-stakes decisions, from stale assumptions in synthetic text to kinetic warfare.
Gen X and the 90s
Two Gen X essays on 90s music, unsupervised freedom, and the lost luxury of an unmonitored mind.
- The Packaged Void: 90s Grunge, Gen X & Lost Sovereignty
- Nobody Knew Where We Were: The Lost Summer of Gen X Autonomy
Browse by shelf
My reading lists group the rest of the writing:
- AI Architecture and Business: the physical, structural and enterprise realities of the AI boom.
- Surviving the AI Future: a practical and societal blueprint for the disruption of AI and automation, including the future of work and career survival.
- Philosophy in Media: the existential, ethical and metaphysical questions raised by AI and transhumanism, often through popular media.
Everything in one place
All of it also lives on my site, madkatomega.blog, which adds full-text search, an archive by date, and a map of every series and theme. If you’d like new stories as they land, follow me here on Medium.
