We held an event for the first time in a long while.
A newly started place for learning together, called AI Terakoya – budding edge –.
This time the theme was building a second brain.
Once you build a second brain, using any AI is no longer a chat from zero.
Daily notes, blogs, tweets, reading notes, chat histories with AI, passing ideas.
All of that data becomes your own asset, and feeds the growth of the second brain.
The role of the brain is played by a note-taking app called Obsidian.
Data that until now we handed to companies, turned into Markdown files that Obsidian and AI can read — all of it becomes an asset.
For example, if I ask AI "where was I, what was I doing, what was I thinking ten years ago?",
it finds the relevant data in the Obsidian store and presents it.
For this memorable first session, two people came.
I'm grateful.
Before building a second brain,
they were people who weren't comfortable with computers and wanted to know what AI can do.
First, we started by installing the tools we'd need.
Three things: Antigravity, Obsidian and the course materials.
※The materials link is a referral (affiliate) link.
When we downloaded Antigravity — huh?? It looked different from mine.
It's supposed to be an IDE, but it was almost the same as 2.0?
Without my noticing, Antigravity IDE had become 2.2, while mine was 2.1.
Oh dear. At a glance, the materials hadn't caught up either.
I tried to switch back to the 2.1 interface, but couldn't work it out straight away.
When you don't know how to operate AI, ask AI! Send it a screenshot! That's the way.
The Obsidian download also comes in two versions depending on the CPU.
I'm on a Mac, but I thought Windows users might be unsure which to choose.
Not everyone knows what kind of CPU they have.
To download the materials you have to open an account on Brain.
Entering a credit card, paying online, and on an unfamiliar site at that — I sensed some unease and resistance.
"Can't I build a second brain without these materials?"
A good question came up.
No, that's not the case, I answered.
The data distributed with the materials we used, "Turn your notes into assets! The complete roadmap to building a second brain with Antigravity × Obsidian", is like a secret sauce.
Like being granted a branch of the author's hard-won "technique for making Obsidian into a second brain".
It's like the convenience of using pancake mix when you make pancakes.
Once you're used to it, you can make it with plain flour, or try rice flour, or switch the sugar to the raw sugar you usually use and reduce it, and so on.
I myself have recently been running things with Claude rather than Antigravity.
I open the Obsidian vault in Claude and have it act as AI secretary for /today-start and /weekly-review.
The reason is that Claude Fable 5 is smart. Rebuilding the website with Fable, making SaaS-like things — as my time with Claude grew longer, I wanted to keep my diary in Claude too.
Two hours wasn't enough for this session.
From now on, I thought, I'll also offer a preparation session for building a second brain,
and a one-to-one plan.
I found one more role for myself.
That makes me very happy.
The joy that there's something I too can do that brings joy to people who need it.
Finding that was this session's learning.
I'll announce the date of the next AI Terakoya – budding edge –
and the one-to-one lessons later!
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It's a little long, but let me write about the origin of the name.
A bud is a shoot (budding: coming into leaf), and edge means a rim.
In English, "cutting edge" is used to mean the leading edge,
so I coined the phrase "Budding Edge" (the edge where things sprout) to mean a place for learning together how to use AI as a tool for creating space in daily life and making it richer.
While thinking up the event name, wanting one that would reach people in their teens and twenties too, I remembered the words of Professor Tina Seelig of Stanford University.
"Uncertainty is the essence of life, and it fuels opportunity."
— Tina Seelig, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20
Professor Seelig also says that opportunities are often right in front of us — beyond your own desk, outside your building, just around the corner — and speaks of the importance of taking small risks that step outside your comfort zone.
And in "edge" I also put the meaning of the "edge of chaos" in complexity science.
The stability of instability resonates with the words that uncertainty is the essence of life.
Letting go of the illusion of stability, savouring change, enjoying it together with companions — I don't think age has anything to do with that attitude.
AI Terakoya is a "Budding Edge" that cheers on the courage to take a step around a corner you can't see past.
Look forward to the next AI Terakoya – budding edge –!
(Hideo)