Out of all the lives that have been lived throughout history, if you drew one at random, who would you be?
This was the premise of The Veil of History. In just a few clicks, you can determine where and when you would have lived, and whether you would have been a prince or peon. (Spoiler alert: you were probably a peon with a short life.)
Ethan Mollick made it with Claude Code, and it was one of the many cool projects I’ve stumbled upon made far more accessible with AI.
In my recent essay on AI transformation, I made the point that AI transformation really starts to happen when you change your personal relationship with AI. Instead of bemoaning its capacity to take your job or your creative talents, why not think of it as your own personal Chorebot2000 and give it all the digital-world tasks you hate: filling out fiddly forms, following up, finding some needle in giant, unsorted piles of hay?
But what comes after that? Once we've expanded our day as a result with less Chorework, what do we fill it with that is exciting, creative, and high-agency?
Last week I wrote about one answer: building your own hyperpersonalized software.
Merriam-Webster gives one definition of a tool as “a means to an end.”
We spend a lot of time comparing and optimizing our means. Claude or Codex? Instinct or Muse? Kimi or Qwen?
Today, I want to spend more time talking about the ends: how can we use AI tools to get more out of leisure?
Leisure, to many, is not a “good” reason for AI, especially when the stakes seem to center around whether you’ll be a part of the permanent underclass or who will win in global geopolitics or whether there is a 10% chance the human race will be destroyed.
But I can think of no better reason for leisure than the idea of agency itself: the drive to create that comes from a personal sense of freedom and choice.
I break it down into four buckets:
Hobbies++
The pot at the end of the what-if rainbow
Future doses of delight
One-of-a-kind gifts
Let’s dive into each!
Bucket 1: Hobbies++
The summer after my freshman year, a fellow intern introduced me to Catan, the board game where you gather resources and compete to trade and build settlements. I became absolutely obsessed. Apparently I am not the only one!
Meng To used Astra to make a playable version with animated pieces and computer opponents so you can get that ore and wheat even when your friends are unavailable!
What about understanding the inner workings of things, like what makes a smooth muscle car go?
Dilum Sanjaya asked Astra for an interactive model of an eight-cylinder engine. You can see the pistons moving, peek closer, and change the speed. So much richer than reading a block of text and seeing a static picture with labels!
I love seeing people take their hobbies to the next level with AI. You start with something you already like, whether a game or a topic of interest, and then you explore it further, ideally pushing on its creative boundaries.
For example, my childhood hobby was drawing. Now, I was proud of my skill, so replicating my illustrations with AI wouldn’t have excited me. But what if my drawings could move, or morph into playable characters in a game?
Here’s another example that inspired the fashionista in me: cdngdev had AI identify all the clothes from his camera roll, inventory them into an online closet, and give him more styling options. It’s like a whole new wardrobe without having to buy a single new item!
I also loved this Pokémon Go for real cats by Sebastian Seidel, mashing together three real-world hobbies: felines, exploring a neighborhood, and collecting. Each cat you find becomes a collectible complete with a name, rarity, and stats. Turn your walks into side quests!
Bucket 2: The pot at the end of the what-if rainbow
What if AI agents existed in the 1970s, but you had to call them on a rotary phone and see their results on a mechanical split-flap display?
This is exactly what Karen X. Cheng wondered, and now we have an answer! It’s pretty delightful.
I would never have thought of it, but after seeing it I started wondering: okay, so what other unobvious things could we connect together?
Here’s another fun one: what if growing your website traffic was like growing a village? DataEmpire explores that question, with visitors becoming villagers who chop trees and build houses. Isn’t this way more fun than a dashboard?
There is a certain deep pleasure that comes from seeing a weird idea come to life. I remember this feeling when I was a kid with a box of legos (yes, this was the Jurassic period before legos became inseparable from “sets”).
The game was to explore the what-ifs: What if that three-story building was also a car? What if a group of pirate-knights had a pool party? What if your cat lived in a cat-shaped dwelling?
This is the same feeling that building with AI gives today, a curious tickle that eventually expands into a notion: well, why not try?
I caught a whiff of this feeling when rpnickson fed Astra nine photos of his studio and asked for a little 3D world he could explore.
Instantly, it made me wonder: what if we did the above with a childhood home, or a place that only exists in a drawing?
And then, the what-ifs kept coming:
What if you could order ramen with the press of a button?
What if plucking a certain ukulele chord could transform your living room into a disco party?
What if the cat really could live in a cat-shaped dwelling?
What-if possibilities are endless, and perfect for a weekend afternoon.
Remember: the aim isn’t about getting some specific result (although the pot at the end may very well be filled with something shiny).
It’s about the adventure of simply going on a little jaunt with curiosity.
Bucket 3: Future doses of delight
You know who you should try to coax a smile out of?
Future you.
That’s right, make yourself a gift that keeps on giving!
For example, someone built this system that listens for birds outside their apartment. It identifies the species, and then turns those birds into an artsy illustration within a frame. How cool is that?!
Imagine going from your office to the kitchen and stopping to muse at the symphony of birds that have alighted around you. What a delight!
I have my own build story to share here too. I’ve always been a sucker for “on this day” type of posts, whether enjoying those bite-sized Apple videos made from past photos or reminiscing on a throwback Facebook post. But I kept thinking, “these could be so much richer!” Decades of being a compulsive Dear Diary girl and the One Who Shows Up To a Party with a Fancy Camera have left me with a lot of material.
So I built myself a daily loop that goes through all my old photos and videos (compiled from both my fancy camera and my phone) as well as my past journal entries, and compiles a story from the same month in my life in the past. Every morning, it WhatsApps it to my husband and me and we both love reading them and getting transported back to another past moment in our lives.
Bucket 4: One-of-a-kind gifts
One of my friends is an avid painter and I’ve been lucky to be gifted some of her watercolors to display in my office. Meanwhile, my kids' drawings decorate the walls leading to our bedroom. None of this is professional work, but I cherish them because of the people who made them and I know I’ve got the only one of it in the world.
In the era of AI, there is so much blue sky for creative expression in the form of gifts!
Case in point, my son just turned 10, and asked us for a Geometry Dash birthday party. If you aren’t familiar with the game, it’s a ridiculously unforgiving single-player web platformer where you are a cube trying to avoid triangles and other dangerous shapes while jumping to the beat of catchy EDM songs.
My husband Mike, who goes ALL OUT for party planning, decided that he did not want to host a party where a bunch of kids brought their iPads and played this game solo. Alas, Geometry Dash does not offer multiplayer, so Mike decided to build his own multiplayer version personalized for our son. You can play as various cubes in the theme of my son’s other favorite hobbies: Pokémon, Minecraft, Rubik’s Cube. His levels also come with songs composed with the help of AI featuring a ton of insider family jokes (Healthy Gaming is one of my faves!)
I saw another example of personalized gifts when a father whose son loves Mario built a game starring the son, his siblings, and his cousins. You can choose which family member to play!
Instead of gifting an Amazon buy that thousands of other people already have, what if the gift is the experience of making something that only you can make for only that person?
This week, make something just for fun
If you’re still reading, I hope you’re feeling inspired! Maybe inspired enough to try the below?
Start with a person you love, or an activity you enjoy, or just an odd idea you keep coming back to. Then, complete this sentence: “It would make me happy if _____.”
Make it specific enough that you can visualize the results.
Then make a single request of AI: It would make me happy if ___________. I’m imagining it could look like ____________. Can you help me do that?
Hit enter and see what you get back. Tell the AI where it got your vision right or wrong. Keep iterating. Maybe include family members in your exploration.
You may discover magic in the process itself. You may find yourself with even more ideas after the first one. You may inspire someone else to make their imagination tangible.
Whatever it is, I hope it feels like play!
38 ideas I’ve been inspired to make
One more thing, for paid subscribers: my own list of 38 things I have been inspired to make, sorted into the same four buckets.
Some I have completed, some are in progress, and some are still on my list (which keeps growing ever longer!).
