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title: "Journal — Page 2 | Safwan AlModhayan"
description: "Essays published on Safwan AlModhayan’s site about technology, people and institutions, organized for thoughtful reading."
---
## Language versions
- [ar-SA](https://isafwan.com/ar/blog/page/2/)
- [en](https://isafwan.com/en/blog/page/2/)
- [ru](https://isafwan.com/ru/blog/page/2/)
- [x-default](https://isafwan.com/ar/blog/page/2/)
- [zh-CN](https://isafwan.com/zh-CN/blog/page/2/)
[Safwan AlModhayan A living intellectual interface](https://isafwan.com/en/)
# Journal
Original essays about technology, judgment, power, and the choices institutions make.
Showing 14–25 of 37 essays
## Essays
14
Published
### The Late Signature: Who Owns a Decision Made by a Machine?
From England’s 2020 grades to credit governance, an inquiry into real authority, human oversight, explanations, and correction before automated harm takes effect.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#artificial-intelligence)
- [Power](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#power)
- [Truth and knowledge](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#truth)
15
Published
### When the Metric Became a More Important Customer Than the Customer
Why performance metrics can improve while service worsens—from Wells Fargo and emergency waiting targets to reward models, guardrails, and a proposed counter-test.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#artificial-intelligence)
- [Data](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#data)
- [Power](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#power)
16
Published
### When the Machine Got Pocket Money
From a nine-payment demonstration to x402, AP2 and MPP: how software agents can pay without confusing signature integrity, legitimate purpose and delivery.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#artificial-intelligence)
- [Emerging technologies](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#emerging-technologies)
- [Power](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#power)
17
Published
### The Apprentice Whose Mistakes Disappeared
How automation can improve output while weakening skill formation—and how evidence from coding, aviation, medicine, and education suggests better training designs.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#artificial-intelligence)
- [Emerging technologies](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#emerging-technologies)
18
Published
### The Name That Stopped a Probate Application After Its Owner Died
What British probate data reveal about digital-service exceptions, selective prediction, procedural fairness, and review paths for unusual cases.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#artificial-intelligence)
- [Data](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#data)
- [Truth and knowledge](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#truth)
19
Published
### The Speed That Stopped at the Desk
Why individual AI speed does not always improve customer outcomes, and how handoffs, organizational complements, and a factorial test can expose the gap.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#artificial-intelligence)
- [Data](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#data)
20
Published
### The Borrowed Intelligence Economy
Why AI wrappers are not deep technology, how original technical knowledge creates durable value, and what Saudi Arabia should build by 2030.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#artificial-intelligence)
- [Emerging technologies](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#emerging-technologies)
- [Power](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#power)
21
Published
### The Words That Are Not on the Internet
A proposal for a National Saudi Diwan of Human Knowledge built on authentic human data, consent, provenance, education, and public participation.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#artificial-intelligence)
- [Data](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#data)
- [Emerging technologies](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#emerging-technologies)
22
Published
### Everything Works. What, Then, Do We Know?
The digital prosperity paradox in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf: what cloud outages reveal about shared dependencies and service continuity—and what success indicators cannot prove.
- [Cybersecurity](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#cybersecurity)
- [Data](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#data)
- [Power](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#power)
23
Published
### The Computer That Cuts Its Own Wage
What happens when inference prices fall faster than long-lived computing assets can recover their capital? An essay on software efficiency, paid demand, capacity and the commercial life of AI hardware.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#artificial-intelligence)
- [Data](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#data)
- [Power](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#power)
24
Published
### The Bee That Stopped the Dance
How swarm intelligence, small specialized models, model routing, and local inference may reshape artificial intelligence systems.
- [Artificial intelligence](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#artificial-intelligence)
- [Data](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#data)
- [Emerging technologies](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#emerging-technologies)
25
Published
### When the Lights Rise and the Economy Disappears from View
Can satellites read the Saudi economy before its statistics arrive? An essay on nighttime radiance, GDP, data vintages, cultural calendars and the limits of economic inference from orbit.
- [Data](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#data)
- [Truth and knowledge](https://isafwan.com/en/topics/#truth)
Page 2 of 3[Previous page](https://isafwan.com/en/blog/)[1](https://isafwan.com/en/blog/)[2](https://isafwan.com/en/blog/page/2/)[3](https://isafwan.com/en/blog/page/3/)[Next page](https://isafwan.com/en/blog/page/3/)
The Intelligent Investor
## Reference notebook
Newly edited prose based on Safwan’s supplied Arabic review.
### Margin of safety: room for being wrong
A margin of safety is a design for fallible judgment, not a promise that a low price will prevent loss.
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail[From discovery to a margin of safety](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-innovators-dilemma-discovery-before-scale)
### Price and value are different arguments
A changing price is an offer; deciding whether it is attractive requires an independent account of value and its assumptions.
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail[From value networks to price and value](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-innovators-dilemma-value-networks)
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail[From useful performance to price and value](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-innovators-dilemma-performance-and-use)
### Decision quality before the outcome
A result informs the review of a decision, but it cannot replace an examination of the evidence, process, and risks known at the time.
Creativity, Inc.[From the hidden to decision quality](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-creativity-inc-design-for-the-hidden)
[Open the full reading note](https://isafwan.com/en/personal/readings/intelligent-investor/)
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail
## Reference notebook
Newly edited prose based on Safwan’s supplied Arabic review.
### Value networks: what an organization can recognize
Customers, processes, margins, and measures of success shape which possibilities an organization can turn into funded work.
The Intelligent Investor[From value networks to price and value](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-price-and-value)
Creativity, Inc.[From candor to value networks](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-creativity-inc-candor-without-command)
### Performance is meaningful only in use
A technically weaker offer can matter when it is sufficient for a particular use and changes cost, access, convenience, or participation.
The Intelligent Investor[From useful performance to price and value](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-price-and-value)
### Discovery before scale
An emerging market calls for experiments that resolve decisive uncertainty before a large forecast or budget hardens around it.
The Intelligent Investor[From discovery to a margin of safety](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-margin-of-safety)
Creativity, Inc.[From unfinished work to discovery before scale](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-creativity-inc-protect-the-unfinished)
[Open the full reading note](https://isafwan.com/en/personal/readings/innovators-dilemma/)
Creativity, Inc.
## Reference notebook
Newly edited prose based on Safwan’s supplied Arabic review.
### Candor without command
Criticism becomes productive when people can name a problem precisely without using expertise or rank to take ownership of the work away from its makers.
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail[From candor to value networks](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-innovators-dilemma-value-networks)
### Protect the unfinished, require the learning
An immature idea deserves conditions in which it can develop, together with evidence that it is actually learning rather than merely consuming protection.
The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail[From unfinished work to discovery before scale](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-innovators-dilemma-discovery-before-scale)
### Design for what power and automation hide
Responsible systems assume that rank, incentives, and technical autonomy can conceal material problems from the people expected to act on them.
The Intelligent Investor[From the hidden to decision quality](https://isafwan.com/en/notebook/#reading-decision-under-uncertainty)
[Open the full reading note](https://isafwan.com/en/personal/readings/creativity-inc/)