Alcides Fonseca.AI & Programming Languages researcher
40.197958, -8.408312

Making intelligent software
more reliable.

I work on the intersection of AI, Software Engineering and Programming Languages. Currently, I am applying Formal Methods to Agents, towards AI Safety.

Program synthesisLiquid typesReliable AIGuardrailsEvals

Familiarity-Driven Design

Why do I run Prometheus on my own machines if I don’t recommend that you do so? I run it because I already know Prometheus (and Grafana)[…]
This has a flipside, where you use a tool because you know it even if there might be a significantly better option, one that would actually be easier overall even accounting for needing to learn the new option and build up the environment around it. What we could call “familiarity-driven design” is a thing, and it can even be a confining thing, one where you shape your problems to conform to the tools you already know.

— Chris Siebenmann

I do exactly the same thing. There is so much technology in my life that I need to reduce the number of tools, languages and frameworks that I use.

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