A Short Distance Ahead

About the Substack

A playful yet profound week-by-week journey through the history of AI and humanity's evolving relationship with artificial minds, told through interconnected stories of the dreamers, skeptics, and accidental prophets who shaped our digital destiny.

Free Subscription Benefits

  • All 75 weekly essays from The Year Was 1950 to The Year Was 2025

Paid Subcription Benefits

  • Supplemental content and features that examines co-writing with AI
  • Essays outside of, but adjacent to AI history, written without AI
  • Curated bi-weekly round-up of AI related articles that influence SDA essays

Paid Subscription Plans

  • $80 a year
  • $8 a month

About David Williams

I write A Short Distance Aheadโ€”a newsletter that is charting humanity's pursuit of machine minds in 75 weekly essays.

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