The fastest way to learn AI is to owe someone a demo

I tried learning AI the responsible way: courses, newsletters, a folder of bookmarked papers I was definitely going to read. Retention was zero. There was no deadline and nobody waiting.

Then I promised a friend a working demo by Friday, and learned more in four days than in the previous four months. Owing someone a demo compresses everything: you stop researching options and pick one, you hit the real errors instead of the theoretical ones, and you find out immediately which parts of your idea were decoration.

Now it’s my whole method. Every build on this feed started as a promise to a specific person with a date attached. If you want to learn this stuff, don’t enroll in anything — owe someone a demo.