Roel Smelt
Exploring what technology does to us — and then trying it out.

Latest

26
May
Europe’s Tragic Paradox: Why “Reinventing Itself” Is Not Enough

Europe’s Tragic Paradox: Why “Reinventing Itself” Is Not Enough

Yes. And this is exactly why the frequently heard call “Europe must reinvent itself” sounds so true, yet is institutionally
2 min read
26
May
A human silhouette reaching beyond luminous gold interface panels toward a deeper field of light.

AI is the final triumph of the screen

AI is not the next species. It is the final triumph of a worldview that mistook the screen for the world.
7 min read
23
May
The Human Is Not the Bottleneck: Why Agents Must Optimize Around the Drum of Meaning

The Human Is Not the Bottleneck: Why Agents Must Optimize Around the Drum of Meaning

There’s a quiet contempt woven into most conversations about AI. It rarely announces itself with crude slogans like “replace
6 min read
20
May
Renault is trying to monetise the parking lot

Renault is trying to monetise the parking lot

Vehicle-to-grid is technically real. Strategically, it accepts the least valuable version of a car: one that is sitting still.
5 min read
12
May
The Coming Literacy Crisis Is Not About Reading. It Is About Asking.

The Coming Literacy Crisis Is Not About Reading. It Is About Asking.

In an age of artificial oracles, the decisive human skill is no longer access to answers. It is learning how to ask questions that make answers matter.
4 min read
09
May
The Worldview That Made Us Powerful Also Made Us Replaceable

The Worldview That Made Us Powerful Also Made Us Replaceable

Modernity made the world measurable and gave us AI. But if humans are only information processors inside that measurable world, AI becomes the better processor. The hopeful turn is consciousness.
5 min read
04
May
The Taste Gap: Why AI Makes Discernment the New Superpower

The Taste Gap: Why AI Makes Discernment the New Superpower

AI makes execution abundant. The scarce human capacity is no longer output, but discernment: the taste to know what is true, coherent, beautiful, and worth bringing into the world.
7 min read
29
Apr
The First Artificial Oracle

The First Artificial Oracle

Why truth, curiosity, and beauty may be the only defense against obedient AI.
9 min read
23
Apr
What Mainstream Media Keeps Missing

What Mainstream Media Keeps Missing

Mainstream media keeps misreading technological change because it judges visible polish instead of underlying architecture. In robotaxis, that means mistaking local competence for scalable intelligence — and missing the systems that may actually reshape civilization.
7 min read
22
Apr
AI Is a New Literacy

AI Is a New Literacy

AI is not just a tool. It is a new literacy — one that expands human creativity, compresses the distance between imagination and execution, and changes who gets to build.
7 min read