Glass Boxes, Not Black Boxes
Why this newsletter is called what it's called
"Laimen" is a play on "layman." That's not a cute naming trick. It's the entire point of everything I do.
I build AI automations for a living. The rule I hold myself to is simple: if I can't explain a build in plain English to someone who's never touched AI, I haven't finished the job. Everyone knows what a black box is. Something happens inside, you don't know what, and when it breaks you're stuck. Most AI feels exactly like that.
So I build the opposite. Glass boxes. Every automation is a set of written steps anyone can read, like recipe cards in a kitchen. Each station has a card: what goes in, what happens, what comes out. The chef tastes the dish at checkpoints before it leaves the kitchen. Nobody's guessing what's in the sauce.
This newsletter runs on the same rule. Every issue explains Claude the way I'd explain it to a smart friend who has better things to do than read AI Twitter. If a word would make your eyes glaze, it doesn't make the cut. You'll never need a glossary to finish an issue.
You can make Claude work in glass-box mode too. Before any bigger task, add this line:
Now you see the recipe before the cooking starts. You can fix step two before it becomes a problem at step five.
That's the deal here. AI explained like a person, not a spec sheet. See you Tuesday.
— Mark Garza, Laimen AI