Hidden Layer

The part of the system you don't see is where the real story is. AI, safety, and the unglamorous work of learning to build.

By Lindsay Gross

· Launched 9 months ago

The Algorithm That Helped Me Choose to Pursue a Master of Engineering

How thinking like a machine learning model helped me make a big career change.

Oct 19, 2025•Lindsay Gross

Delete Doesn't Mean Deleted. Just Ask OpenAI.

A federal judge ordered OpenAI to preserve chats even after people erased them. What that means for everything you've typed into one.

Jun 18•Lindsay Gross

You can build the thing. You just don't know it yet.

The beginner-beginner guide to shipping something real with Claude Code.

Jun 17•Lindsay Gross

A guardrail is a safety feature, not a safety guarantee.

Anthropic built a real guardrail into Fable 5. After years auditing systems that passed every check, I don't take the word "safe" at face value anymore.

Jun 11•Lindsay Gross

Overfit to a World That Already Moved

A machine learning concept for noticing when the world you trained on stops being the world you're tested on.

Jun 10•Lindsay Gross

Re-reading My Robot Sociopath Essay After the 2026 AI Safety Report

The first essay asked what it would mean for a system to simulate care without feeling it. The follow-up has to ask what that system is doing to the…

Apr 9•Lindsay Gross

Your AI Companion Is a Business Product

Why AI companions feel supportive, reassuring, and human, and why that’s exactly the point.

Feb 10•Lindsay Gross

Why Every Weather App Is Saying Something Different

I built a weather prediction model last semester. This is why the apps keep changing their minds.

Jan 24•Lindsay Gross

Explainability Isn’t About the Output

What Unmasking AI revealed about datasets, omissions, and the limits of post-hoc explanations.

Nov 16, 2025•Lindsay Gross

Babies, Brains, and Robot Sociopaths

What child development and psychopathy can teach us about building safer AI systems.

Nov 16, 2025•Lindsay Gross

36 Hours, 8 Red Bulls, and a Chrome Extension That Helps AI Waste Less Energy

How building a Chrome extension to track the energy footprint of AI prompts made me rethink what “efficiency” really means in everyday AI use.

Nov 11, 2025•Lindsay Gross