I find striking how much of a hype there is around concepts like "second brain", "zettelkasten", "networked note-taking", "PARA method", "Johnny Decimal", etc., and around note-taking apps such as Roam Research, Notion, Obsidian, and so on. So I found fascinating Kevin Baker's May 2024 take on them as "sandboxes for infinite varieties of avoidant labor".

Here's the relevant excerpt, shared without further comment:

"Incapacitating" is exactly how I would describe my relationship to computers, especially since the start of the pandemic. "Friction" for me looks like uncertainty, partial knowledge, ambiguity, disorder, or anxiety. The ecosystem of note taking software and influencers that has emerged since 2020 offer a great example of what I am talking about. Writing is a task which forces one to confront ambiguity, uncertainty, and one’s own limits directly, so it’s not surprising that a coterie of avoidance entrepreneurs sprung up around it. The goal of note taking systems, almost without exception, is to provide a smooth, frictionless environment for making connections between disparate topics. As your “second brain” develops, the ability—and indeed the desire—to create a dense latticework of connections increases. The problem for me, at least, is that I don’t find the work of making connections to be difficult. If anything, my “first brain” tends to overproduce these kinds of thoughts.

What it does provide, however, is a sandbox for infinite varieties of “avoidant labor.” If your writing anxiety focuses, like mine frequently does, on the possibility of “accidental plagiarism,” well, you can tend to your “zettlekasten,” and ensure that everything you ever highlighted is properly cited and tagged. If you have a more generic form of writing anxiety, why not spend a few hours linking your notes? In both cases, you have an act adjacent to writing, which relieves some of the tension of not writing but actively avoids the task itself.

yahoo news | Mark Zuckerberg is building an AI co-CEO as part of his continuing mission to free himself from the burden of human interaction

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder who spent billions on a failed metaverse and now equips millions with surveillance‑heavy goggles, is trying to eliminate the last obstacle between himself and his grand plans: having to talk to other people. According to Wall Street Journal reporting, Meta has been quietly building an AI agent to act as a co‑CEO for Zuckerberg, handling tasks such as information retrieval that would normally require him to interact with subordinates. The prototype is already being used to pull data, draft briefings and even offer executive advice, raising the question of whether it could ever out‑perform a human assistant or a system like ChatGPT.

The AI effort is part of a broader re‑organisation at Meta that flattens the company’s hierarchy and leans heavily on internal “agentic” tools. Employees are developing an ecosystem that includes My Claw – a chatbot that can converse with coworkers and reference files and chat logs – and Second Brain, described as an AI “chief of staff” that parses project documentation. A newly‑created AI engineering division now has as many as 50 engineers reporting to a single manager, and an internal messaging board hosts a group where employees’ AI agents can talk to one another. This push has been complemented by Meta’s recent acquisition of Moltbook, an almost entirely AI‑populated social platform, whose founders joined Meta to help scale the agent‑centric workflow.

Zuckerberg’s ambition goes beyond convenience; he sees AI as the core medium through which Meta will operate. In the January earnings call he said, “We’re investing in AI‑native tooling so individuals at Meta can get more done… we’re elevating individual contributors and flattening teams.” The company is also reportedly preparing to cut up to 20 % of its workforce, a move that would further reduce human‑to‑human interaction in favor of AI‑mediated processes. As Meta pushes its AI agents into ever more senior roles, the experiment may become a defining test of whether a tech giant can truly replace its own human leadership with software.

Read more: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/mark-zuckerberg-is-building-an-ai-co-ceo-as-part-of-his-continuing-mission-to-free-himself-from-the-burden-of-human-interaction/

#markzuckerberg #meta #chatgpt #secondbrain #aiengineering

yahoo news | Mark Zuckerberg is building an AI co-CEO as part of his continuing mission to...

Mark Zuckerberg, the Meta founder who spent billions on a failed metaverse, is now turning to artificial intelligence to eliminate the one task he still dislikes most: interacting with other people. According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, Meta is developing an AI “co‑CEO” that will handle information‑retrieval and other routine duties that would otherwise require the CEO to speak with his staff. The internal agent is being built as part of Zuckerberg’s broader vision of making AI the primary medium through which Meta operates, effectively giving the billionaire a digital surrogate for everyday decision‑making.

During Meta’s January earnings call, Zuckerberg said the company is “investing in AI‑native tooling so individuals at Meta can get more done, elevating individual contributors and flattening teams.” To support this, Meta has created a new AI engineering division where up to 50 employees report to a single manager, under the assumption that a swarm of AI agents will keep the organization from devolving into chaos. Employees are already using a suite of internal tools such as “My Claw,” which can communicate with coworkers and reference employee files, and “Second Brain,” an AI‑powered chief‑of‑staff that parses project documentation and keeps track of work‑streams.

The AI‑first strategy extends to Meta’s acquisitions, most recently the purchase of Moltbook—an almost entirely AI‑populated social‑media platform whose founders were brought on board. Within Meta’s internal messaging system, AI agents now have a dedicated group where they can interact with one another, effectively creating an AI‑only social network. As the company leans further into automation, reports indicate that Meta may cut up to 20 % of its human workforce, replacing those roles with the very agents it is designing to reduce the need for human-to‑human communication.

Read more: https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/mark-zuckerberg-is-building-an-ai-co-ceo-as-part-of-his-continuing-mission-to-free-himself-from-the-burden-of-human-interaction/

#markzuckerberg #meta #ai #secondbrain #aico-ceo

Agi: Zuckerberg crea un agente IA per assisterlo come Ceo di Meta

AGI - Mark Zuckerberg vuole portare Meta verso un modello in cui ogni persona, dentro e fuori l'azienda, abbia il proprio agente di intelligenza artificiale personale. E ha deciso di partire da sé. Per questo, scrive il Wall Street Journal, sta sviluppando un "CEO agent" pensato per assisterlo nel lavoro quotidiano e recuperare più rapidamente informazioni che oggi passano ancora attraverso diversi livelli della struttura interna.
Il progetto si inserisce in una spinta più ampia che attraversa tutta Meta, gruppo da quasi 79.000 dipendenti, con l'obiettivo di accelerare i ritmi di lavoro, ridurre i livelli gerarchici e cambiare le mansioni quotidiane dei dipendenti per restare competitiva rispetto alle startup nate direttamente nell'era dell'AI. Zuckerberg aveva già indicato questa direzione nella call sui conti di gennaio, spiegando che Meta sta investendo in strumenti "AI-native" per permettere ai singoli dipendenti di fare di più e rendere i team più piatti. Secondo il Wsj, l'uso di questi strumenti si è già diffuso rapidamente all'interno dell'azienda, anche perché oggi pesa nelle valutazioni delle performance.
Agenti AI e strumenti interni
Tra gli strumenti citati ci sono agenti personali come "My Claw", che possono accedere a chat e file di lavoro e interagire con colleghi o con gli agenti dei colleghi. Un altro strumento interno, "Second Brain", sviluppato sopra Claude, serve invece a indicizzare e interrogare documenti di progetto ed è stato descritto internamente come una sorta di "chief of staff artificiale". Meta ha anche creato una nuova organizzazione di ingegneria applicata all'IA, incaricata di accelerare lo sviluppo dei LLM del gruppo, con team dalla struttura molto piatta.
Impatto sui dipendenti e sfide future
Ma questa trasformazione, scrive il giornale americano, alimenta anche tensioni interne: alcuni dipendenti la considerano una fase stimolante, altri temono che la corsa all'efficienza possa tradursi in nuovi tagli. Dopo i grandi licenziamenti avviati tra 2022 e 2023, quando Meta eliminò complessivamente 21.000 posti, l'organico è tornato a salire fino a 78.865 dipendenti. Per il management, però, la priorità resta evitare che un gruppo delle dimensioni di Meta lavori con minore efficienza rispetto ai concorrenti costruiti fin dall'inizio attorno all'intelligenza artificiale.

Zuckerberg creates an AI agent to assist him as CEO of Meta.

Mark Zuckerberg wants to lead Meta towards a model where every person, inside and outside the company, has their own personal AI agent. And he’s planning to start with himself. According to the Wall Street Journal, he is developing a “CEO agent” designed to assist him in his daily work and quickly retrieve information that currently passes through multiple levels of the internal structure.

The project fits into a broader push throughout Meta, a group of nearly 79,000 employees, with the aim of accelerating work rhythms, reducing hierarchical levels, and changing employees' daily tasks to remain competitive with startups born directly in the age of AI. Zuckerberg had already indicated this direction in the January earnings call, explaining that Meta is investing in “AI-native” tools to allow individual employees to do more and make teams flatter. According to the WSJ, the use of these tools has already spread rapidly within the company, even because it now weighs in performance evaluations.

AI Agents and Internal Tools
Among the tools cited are personal agents like “My Claw,” which can access chat and work files and interact with colleagues or with the agents of colleagues. Another internal tool, “Second Brain,” developed on top of Claude, serves instead to index and query project documents and has been described internally as a sort of “artificial chief of staff.” Meta has also created a new applied engineering organization focused on AI, tasked with accelerating the development of the group’s LLMs, with teams with a very flat structure.

Impact on Employees and Future Challenges
But this transformation, the American newspaper writes, also fuels internal tensions: some employees consider it a stimulating phase, while others fear that the race for efficiency could lead to new layoffs. After the large layoffs initiated between 2022 and 2023, when Meta eliminated a total of 21,000 positions, the workforce has returned to rise to 78,865 employees. However, for management, the priority remains to prevent a group the size of Meta from working with less efficiency than competitors built from the outset around artificial intelligence.

#Zuckerberg #MarkZuckerberg #InternalTools #MyClaw #SecondBrain #Claude #American

https://www.agi.it/economia/news/2026-03-24/meta-agente-ai-efficienza-36260481/

I've been building a personal intranet on a laptop in my house for 15 years. It manages my knowledge, music, health, home automation, finances, family photos, and daily routines — all self-hosted, no subscriptions, no lock-in.

Recently integrated AI agents that build new features by conversation. Haven't written code by hand in months.

Made a video about it: https://youtu.be/_IzgvncxP-4

#selfhosted #PKMS #secondbrain #digitalSovereignty #FOSS #homelab

This post is part 2 of a series exploring AI's impact on human cognition. Part 3 goes somewhere darker: the possibility of a Knowledge Collapse, what happens when we outsource our thinking at scale.

If you're curious about the human side of AI, this series might be worth following.

Start here: https://www.ctnet.co.uk/cognitive-effects-technology-history

#PKM #AI #KnowledgeManagement #ArtificialIntelligence #SecondBrain #NoteTaking

Back to the BTS scenes 👀

I’m rethinking my digital systems for my team and myself, balancing a builder’s mindset with a more intentional approach. Notion stays in the stack, alongside explorations into privacy respectful tools like Anytype, while Obsidian remains part of my personal workflow. More on that soon.

If you have ideas for setups I should build or test, drop them below. Let’s prototype better digital systems! 🌱

#PKM #SecondBrain #Anytype #Obsidian #Notion #KnowledgeManagement

Aus meiner digitalen Rumpelkammer: Anytype Desktop v 0.54 Beta freigegeben

Es gibt mal wieder Neues von Anytype zu berichten, meiner digitalen Rumpelkammer, die zusammen mit Joplin die Basis für mein »zweites Gehirn« bildet. Dabei stellt Anytype wegen der Möglichkeit, die Seiten aufzuhübschen und auch (einzelne) Seiten für das Web zu exportieren, ein Zwischending zwischen einem digitalen Garten und einer digitalen Rumpelkammer dar. https://kantel.github.io/posts/2026022401_anytype_0_54_beta/ #Anytype #Zettelkasten #SecondBrain

See how I am using Notion as Second Brain, enhancing my knowledge work. #secondbrain #notion #personalscholarship #knowledgework

http://michellehomescholar.com/2026/02/21/notion-as-second-brain/