The Call
Today I was on a call with about a dozen builders from Austin and some from around the country. Just fired up. People sharing field notes, showing what they built this week, asking hard questions, helping each other debug. It is the most inspiring thing I am part of right now.
I am biased towards applied AI. But the principle underneath is bigger than any single domain. Field notes for anything related to surviving and thriving in this new world are essential. The post-World War II economic order is collapsing. The institutions people relied on for stability are either captured, incompetent, or actively hostile to their interests. The question is not whether you will be affected. The question is whether you will face it alone or with a network.
What Communities Actually Are
Communities at their best are survival networks. Success networks. Flourishing networks.
This is not a metaphor. Look at any group in history that was not the dominant power. How did they survive in times of injustice? How did they maintain identity and capability when the system was designed to crush them? Community. Shared knowledge. Mutual aid. People teaching each other what they learned. Covering each other's blind spots.
As Christians might say: in a fallen world, being in community is the only way you survive.
Black communities in the Jim Crow South built parallel institutions (schools, banks, mutual aid societies) because the official ones were closed to them. Immigrant communities in every era have survived by pooling resources, sharing field notes, and raising the floor for everyone in the network.
The pattern is always the same: when the official system fails you, you build your own. And you build it together.
Why AAS Is a Nonprofit
The move to make Applied AI Society a nonprofit community is because we want to successfully enact the earthshot that we have in our hearts. We are not going to be able to do that if we are operating as a business optimizing for revenue. The mission is too important and the urgency is too real.
We need to make it abundantly clear that this is a benevolent organization where everyone contributes, everyone shares, and the result is supernatural upskilling in a tiny amount of time. Not because of any one teacher. Because the network compounds. One person's breakthrough becomes everyone's baseline. That is the flywheel.
The nonprofit structure is the commitment: we are not here to extract. We are here to activate. Every dollar, every hour, every piece of knowledge flows toward helping more people suit up.
The Field Notes Culture
What fires me up about the AAS community is the field notes culture. People do not just use AI. They document what they learn and share it. A practitioner discovers a workflow, writes it up, and now 200 people have it. A student hits a wall, asks for help, and three people who hit the same wall show them the fix. The knowledge graph grows every single day.
This is permissionless knowledge in practice. No gatekeepers. No paid-tier access to the good stuff. Just people who care about each other's success sharing what they know.
I think about this a lot: the most valuable thing in the world right now is not any single AI tool. It is a community of people who are all learning together, sharing honestly, and lifting each other up. That is the ark. Not a product. Not a platform. A network of people who have each other's backs.
Build Your Network
If you do not have a survival network, build one. It does not need to be large. Five people sharing field notes weekly is more powerful than a thousand followers. The test is simple: when something breaks in your life or your business, do you have people you can call who will actually help? Not advise. Help.
If yes, invest in that network. Share your best knowledge with them. Show up when they need you. Compound the trust.
If no, start. Come to an Applied AI Society event. Join the Discord. Find the people who are building, not just talking. The ones sharing field notes. The ones who got their hands dirty and are willing to show you what they learned.
Communities at their best are survival networks. In a fallen world, being in community is the only way you survive. The field notes culture is the mechanism. The nonprofit structure is the commitment. Build your network. Share what you know. The ark is not a product. It is the people.