Over the past year, I’ve spent a good amount of time sharing something I built called The Faust Baseline.
Some of you have followed the posts.
Some of you have watched the ideas take shape as they were written out here piece by piece.
It wasn’t something that appeared overnight.
Like most things that come out of a workshop, it started as a thought… then a framework… and eventually became a working build. A tool meant to help people think a little more clearly when they interact with artificial intelligence. A way to guide conversations toward steadier ground instead of letting them drift wherever the machine decided to go.
For a while I talked about it here because this is where much of the thinking behind it first took form.
But builders eventually reach a point where talk has to give way to a simple test.
So we ran one.
For a short window, the working file for the TFB build was made available for download. No gates, no complicated process, nothing hidden behind a paywall. It was simply placed on the bench for anyone who wanted to take a closer look and try it for themselves.
That test window closed this morning at 6:00 AM.
And the results were straightforward.
Very few people even opened the download page, and only a handful showed any curiosity about the build itself. When numbers come back that small, there’s no need to dress them up or interpret them in complicated ways.
It simply means the interest isn’t there.
That’s not a complaint and it’s not meant as criticism toward anyone reading this. People have different interests, different priorities, and different things competing for their attention every day. That’s just the way the world works.
But clear results deserve clear decisions.
So from this point forward I’m going to do what craftsmen have always done when a particular tool doesn’t find a home in a particular shop.
I’m putting it back on the shelf.
There will be no more discussion of The Faust Baseline here, and no further mentions of the build in future posts. The test ran, the numbers spoke, and that’s enough information to move forward without continuing to push something that this audience clearly isn’t looking for.
Sometimes a thing you build meets its moment right away.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
Either way, the honest move is to accept the result and keep walking.
This space will return to what many of you originally came here for in the first place — reflections, observations, and the quieter work of thinking out loud about the world we’re living through.
The workshop itself hasn’t closed.
But this particular tool will no longer be sitting on the front bench.
By Michael Faust Sr.
Click this link to experence more.
“Intelligent People Assume Nothing” | Michael S Faust Sr. | Substack
Unauthorized commercial use prohibited.
© 2026 The Faust Baseline LLC
