Be more ambitious

Over the last few weeks, my view on AI has been shaped by what it’s going to take away or make obsolete. I’ve been thinking about how I could escape it, and what would still be safe. But if you have that perspective for too long, you’re missing out on the positive aspects, missing what a big enabler AI can be too.

There’s a phrase that keeps echoing in my head and I want to get it out: be more ambitious. I first read it on Simon Willison’s blog, where he shared that this was his 2026 New Year’s resolution. He set that theme for himself to explore the capabilities of coding agents, to see what’s possible.¹

I rediscovered this sense of possibility when I was (again) vibe coding on my phone. I said in earlier posts that it’s not good for me, since it stresses me out.² But, I don’t know, I keep coming back to it, and you could say it’s my favorite mobile game right now.

It also forces me into a different role, because even if I wanted to look at the code, it’s pretty awkward to do so on a phone. I need to rely on AI to explain to me what it changed, and I need to make sure it writes good PR descriptions. I’m still discussing and correcting the suggestions it makes, and I’m learning through that. More than once it suggested a weird solution, and that was only uncovered by interacting with it and letting it explain. I’m now more focused on whether a solution actually addresses the technical problem and aligns with the users’ expectations. I’m not sure how to describe it. It feels even more abstract than programming, and it’s the harder part of building software, the one that often gets overlooked. Maybe that’s adding to the stress too.

The idea of being more ambitious feels like a relief to me. Like a spell that broke my self-built AI pessimism, so I can enjoy building with it again. I don’t want to think of AI as a mere helper that lets me do the things I did before, just quicker. It’s more than that: it lets me do things I couldn’t do before. Instead of worrying about what AI takes away, I want to focus on what it makes possible. I want to be more ambitious too.