MIA KIRAKI

I want us to still take HOURS to do something, even if that something can be automated.
mia kiraki, 2026

1

TELL US ABOUT YOU.

I make stories, always have. Fiction since I was little, then film school, then content strategy, then walked into the AI conversation and realized everyone is talking about machines and not enough people about the minds using them. So I started doing that.

When I’m not at a screen I read literature, watch horror classics or mysteries, go on long hikes, and find every excuse to be near water. Water, water, water.

I think about emotions more than is probably healthy. It all ends up in the work anyway.

2 In one sentence, what are you trying to change?

I’m fighting the slow erasure of voice, taste, and the stubborn refusal to let convenience make everything feel the same, think the same, mean the same thing.

3 What did you notice was broken that made you start writing?

Thoughts live nowhere except your brain.

In my case, I wanted a place where my thinking could accumulate over time, build on itself, become something larger than a single afternoon.

So one day, I picked a pen and paper, and started writing.

4 If you could manifest a brighter tomorrow, what would change by 2030?

I want us to still take HOURS to do something, even if that something can be automated.

I want us to still have the trees, the oceans, the animals, the ozone layer.

(I’m hearing good news on that lately, which gives me hope.)

I want a world that values the time it takes to care about something.
Mia kiraki, 2026

5 How would your closest friends describe you?

This came from four different people, although all of them said “hard to figure out.” I’m ALWAYS trying hard to find out what “hard to figure out” means, but nobody can fully explain it:

Adventurous, fun, stubborn, hard to figure out.

6 What’s a challenge that changed how you see the world?

I’ve never had a simple answer to “What do you do?”

I was always pulled in different directions by different obsessions.

I used to think that made me hard to pin down in a bad way. Like, I grew up moving between different worlds and picking up different languages, both literally and figuratively.

I’ve done creative work, analytical work, security work, storytelling.

The challenge was realizing that being hard to pin down is a feature!

The friction of not fitting neatly into any one box turned out to be the source of everything I write and do. And people that feel the same should embrace the diversity instead of trying to fit into a pre-made box.

7 What are you most proud of right now?

I’m proud of proving that you can bring film, literature, culture, philosophy and emotional depth into a space obsessed with code and still be one of the best-selling voices in it (looking at you, Substack!)

I feel like I haven’t adapted to the room, but the room adapted to me.

I build named systems like WATSON and the Greenhouse that use cultural metaphors to solve technical problems, and people are using them to build things that actually help them use AI in a more thoughtful way.

This is something that still sounds crazy, to this day.

8 On hard days, what kind of signal from your readers keeps you going?

When readers tell me that I’ve changed how they think about AI.

9 WHERE WOULD YOU Point YOUR New Readers and why?

This one – The internet made a ban list for AI writing. I’m making a case for the defense

Like the title says, the internet made a ban list for AI writing, like: don’t use em dashes, don’t start with “what,” don’t use the rule of the three.

I wrote a defense of every single one, backed by Stravinsky, centuries of rhetoric, and a diagnostic system my readers could use.

I feel like it gave people permission to keep their instincts instead of apologizing for them.