Why I Built a Digital Ecosystem
Archive Note — September 2026: This essay was originally published on June 05, 2026 and records an early stage in the development of the M. Haris Ansari digital ecosystem. The ecosystem and the research surrounding it have continued to evolve. The original question remains part of that intellectual history, while the current research has developed toward a broader investigation of coordination across communication, knowledge, institutions, infrastructure, ecosystems, and human–AI environments. For a long time, I thought of my work as a collection of different projects. Some involved writing and research. Others involved websites, media production, photography, filmmaking, communication strategy, artificial intelligence, or digital publishing. They seemed like separate activities. Over time, however, I began to notice that many of them were dealing with diff...