Sometimes I suspect the internet was created solely for us to write our musings while attempting to appear profound.
But in rare moments, you encounter someone who makes “depth” seem simple, and who makes “artificial intelligence” appear more human than some people who insist on sending lunch photos to the family group chat.
Let me tell you about a peculiar tribe—those who, if gathered in one café, would crash the Wi-Fi from the sheer weight of their questions.
They’re neither poets nor programmers exactly, but hybrid creatures who write code as Darwish writes poetry, and build interfaces as Matisse paints lines of light.
1. John Maeda: The Priest Who Programs Feeling
John Maeda is that person who, had he been born in Al-Andalus, would have been a Sufi designing interfaces for Ibn Arabi’s revelations.
The man studied engineering, then discovered that numbers—alone—don’t smile. So he entered design, not to beautify things, but to make them think.
Maeda once wrote: “Technology isn’t cold… we’ve simply forgotten how to warm it with art.”
Here’s the crux: he doesn’t want you to choose between “code” and “poetry,” but to discover that the former is another form of the latter.
I once imagined him scolding his MIT students: “Artificial intelligence isn’t here to replace you, but to remind you how foolish you are when you stop learning.”
2. Bret Victor: The Man Who Dreams That Code Speaks Visually
Bret Victor, that engineer who suspects the keyboard is a conspiracy to slow down thought.
Everything he does revolves around one simple yet insane question: How do we make ideas visible before they’re thought?
He created tools that transform equations into motion, imagination into pulsating code.
Picture him at night, sitting before a screen, screaming: “Ideas must be seen, not read!”
He resembles a magician who grew tired of the audience, so he built tools to turn the audience itself into magicians.
3. Andy Matuschak: The Monk Who Documents Knowledge as Philosophers Document Prayers
Andy Matuschak doesn’t like the word “education.”
He says: “The problem isn’t ignorance, but memory that leaks ideas before they become habits.”
He designed learning tools that make information walk beside you like a patient shadow.
Had he been Arab, he would have been a 3rd-century Hijri author, writing “Memories That Are Unforgettable Because They Were Forgotten So Often.”
Andy wants us to dialogue with knowledge, not memorize it.
He’s the son of a generation that thinks Google suffices, so he responds with a strange smile: “Google knows, but it doesn’t remember for you.”
4. Don Norman: The Grandfather Who Insists Buttons Must Be in Their Proper Place
Don Norman is the one who made the phrase “user experience” spoken in meetings with a reverence resembling Quranic recitation.
This man once saw a door that opened backward, so he wrote a book that changed the world.
His philosophy is simple: if something needs lengthy explanation, it’s not design—it’s an insult.
He said in one of his lectures: “People don’t hate technology; they hate feeling stupid when using it.”
What a sage! How many apps these days treat us as if they’re failed intelligence tests, not human experiences?
Then Comes the Second Team…
Those who treat technology as if it were philosophy disguised as code.
5. Kevin Kelly: The Optimistic Prophet Who Writes About Machines as Mystics Write About the Unseen
Kevin Kelly wrote a book called What Technology Wants, and the title alone is enough to send philosophers into cardiac arrest.
He doesn’t see technology as a tool, but as a being with will.
In his view, we didn’t create the internet; we allowed it to be born through us, as the universe allows a flower to sprout between planetary rocks.
When he writes, you feel he’s talking about robots as if they were his children: he loves them, fears for them, and warns against them simultaneously.
If we sat with him in an Arab majlis, he’d be that guest who drinks coffee slowly and says: “Folks, technology doesn’t want to destroy us… it just wants to evolve, and we’re in the way.”
6. Jaron Lanier: The Harpist Who Screams in Silicon Valley
Jaron Lanier is Kevin’s other face;
He’s the man who built virtual reality, then emerged from it screaming: “Save humans from their algorithms!”
His hair is like his ideas—long, tangled, impossible to arrange easily.
He says: “When you treat the user as a product, don’t expect to get a human.”
He believes the internet lost its innocence when we decided to sell consciousness for advertisements.
Had he lived in pre-Islamic times, he would have been a noble poet attacking Souk Okaz for becoming an ad for dates instead of poetry.
7. Venkatesh Rao: The Writer Who Distills Madness Into Analytical Molds
Venkatesh Rao doesn’t write articles, but intellectual labyrinths.
His essays resemble those sessions that begin with a joke and end with redefining “civilization.”
He’s among the few who excel at using sarcasm as a surgical knife for thought.
He writes about management, bureaucracy, and artificial intelligence as if they were short existential novels.
Read him when tired, you’ll laugh, then discover you understand yourself better.
He says in one of his immortal lines: “Innovation is a failed attempt to convince the future we were intelligent.”
True—how often we reinvent the wheel because we fear looking stupid to our children!
8. Tim Urban: The Genius Child Who Decided to Explain the Universe with Stick Figures
Tim Urban is the person who turned existential anxiety into cartoons.
He writes on his blog “Wait But Why” as if explaining relativity to someone in the kitchen.
He’s the “comedian of technological philosophy.”
He says in one of his articles: “Life is short, but it can be extended slightly if you procrastinate on decisions.”
Reading him, you feel science has become digestible, and consciousness can laugh at itself without losing dignity.
9. Naval Ravikant: The Philosopher Who Came from Silicon Valley Carrying a Small Book of Meditations
Naval Ravikant doesn’t write much, but when he does, you feel his words are programmed in Zen++.
He talks about wealth, but doesn’t mean money; about success, but doesn’t mean fame; about happiness, but not the Instagram kind.
He says: “True wealth is being able to say no.”
Naval resembles an entrepreneur who decided to retire from the market to found a company within himself.
In our Arab world, he might be accused of “philosophizing,” but if we listened closely, we’d discover he’s trying to remind us that “a good idea doesn’t need a conference, just a moment of silence.”
Among All These…
I sometimes feel we’re facing a new generation of philosophers who don’t live in dust-filled libraries, but in user interfaces, dashboards, and breathing code.
They’re children of an era that decided to ask: Does what we design resemble us? Or are we becoming what we design?
I sometimes think “artificial intelligence” is merely a smooth mirror reflecting our elegant stupidity.
When a machine says something intelligent, we applaud, but ignore that it learned this from us.
It’s a beta version of our collective consciousness.
Perhaps technology isn’t in conflict with humanity, but in perpetual negotiation about the meaning of “improvement.”
The Final Scene:
I imagine them all in a small café in San Francisco.
Maeda draws on a napkin, Bret screams “Show me the ideas!”, Andy writes notes in the air, Norman tries to fix the door handle, Kelly talks about “digital spirit”, Lanier plays the harp, Rao mocks them all, Tim Urban draws them as little sticks, And Naval sits smiling silently as if he knows the ending.
I enter, order my coffee, and say: “Beautiful… to live in a time when an idea can write code, and code can write a poem.”
Then I laugh softly, And return to my screen to write this post you’re reading now, Wondering—just like you— Are we the ones creating technology? Or is technology the one reprogramming us every morning, Reminding us of the notifications we haven’t read, And that, no matter how evolved we become, We’re still just a “beta version” of a long human dream?