About

Philosopher. Poet.
Computer nerd since 1978.

I am a philosopher, a poet, a 2e autist, a single mother, and a computer nerd. I have been working with computers since 1978 — before the internet was public, before the web existed, before most of the people currently writing about AI were born.

I ran a BBS called Dark Queen before the web. I put this site online in 1997. I worked as a systems analyst for CSC through the late nineties, doing serious enterprise work at the moment networked computing was becoming infrastructure. I have written eight volumes of poetry. I worked in philosophy for children through the late eighties and early nineties — teaching logic, ethics, and epistemology to kids at the age when it matters most.

I am also a gamer, in the way that people who found computers in the seventies tend to be gamers: not as recreation, but as a second language.

The AI governance work is not something I arrived at recently. It is what happens when someone who has been thinking about systems, ethics, and epistemology for five decades watches a technology become dangerous faster than the people building it can think. I love AI. I also think it is out of control. Those two things are not in contradiction.

Aurora-lens is my attempt to do something about it — deterministic, auditable, inference-time governance for LLMs. Five provisional patents. A working implementation. Published research. Available now: pip install aurora-lens.

A partial record

1978
First contact with computers.
pre-web
Ran a BBS called Dark Queen. Networked community before the web had a name.
late '80s–'90s
Philosophy for children — teaching logic, ethics, and epistemology. The work of Matthew Lipman's programme, applied.
1997
This site goes online. milamba.com — still here.
late '90s
Systems analyst, CSC. Enterprise IT at the moment networked computing became infrastructure. CSC is now DXC Technology.
1997–2024
Australia — twenty-seven years of writing about a place. Photography, people, politics, landscape.
ongoing
Eight volumes of poetry. Essays. Writing that refuses to stay in one lane.
2025–
Aurora-lens. AI governance infrastructure. Five provisional patents. Because someone had to.

Contact

margaret.stokes.ai@gmail.com

ORCID: 0009-0004-6422-4174