The questions, not the answers
In 1751 Diderot and d'Alembert began a book that tried to hold all of human knowledge. Its radical idea was that knowledge belonged to everyone. Two and a half centuries later, the tool has changed — and the idea is due an update.
The premise
Diderot's Encyclopédie gave its readers answers, because an answer on a page was the best a book could do. But a static answer no longer makes the most of the moment we're in. Almost everyone now has access to a capable AI — a tutor that can explain, question, test and argue, at any level, at any hour.
What people are missing isn't answers. It's knowing what to ask, in what order, and how to tell a good answer from a confident-sounding wrong one. So the ModernEncyclopedia gives learners the questions — twelve carefully built prompts per subject — and lets each person's own AI supply the tutoring.
What it is
A free, open library of AI learning prompts spanning a full curriculum: foundations and critical thinking, the school subjects, the university disciplines, the professions, and sixteen frontier “tech horizons” from quantum computing to synthetic biology. Every subject shares the same twelve-prompt structure and is built to the same Quality Charter.
It is deliberately AI-agnostic. The prompts are designed to work in Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or whatever you already use. Nothing here is a product you log into; it's a set of instructions you copy.
The bigger goal
Underneath the curriculum is a simple bet about the AI era: the people who will get the most from AI are the curious and the knowledgeable. AI is a lever, and understanding is the arm that works it — the more you know, the more each prompt multiplies what you can do. So ModernEncy isn't only about learning subjects; it's about turning ordinary curiosity into genuine mastery of AI itself. Educate people broadly, and for free, and you help them become real AI power-users — and grow, personally, in the process. That's the whole aim: not to keep you here, but to send you out sharper.
Follow that through and the promise is striking: a curriculum that runs all the way to degree-level depth, open to anyone, for free — you supply only the cost of the AI you already use. No tuition, no entry requirements, no gatekeeping. That is what democratising education can actually look like — not a cheaper version of the old system, but genuine university-level learning available to whoever is curious enough to ask. And the one remaining cost, the compute, only keeps falling; perhaps one day public infrastructure will cover even that, and the whole thing is free end to end. Who knows. For now, the curriculum is free — and that is a real start.
What it isn't
It isn't a chatbot, a course platform, or a replacement for teachers, textbooks or experts. It won't act as your doctor, lawyer or financial adviser. And it isn't trying to keep you on a site — the whole point is to send you off to think, with better questions than you arrived with.
Privacy by default
The site sets no cookies, runs no analytics, and loads no third-party trackers. It doesn't even phone home for fonts. Read the privacy policy →
Who makes it
ModernEncy is built by AgenticEncy — a trading name and business unit of MAXFR LTD (registered in England and Wales, company no. 1455659; maxfr.co.uk). It's a work in progress — around 200 subject nodes are mapped and 39 are built out so far, with more on the way.
The curriculum is free. The tutor is yours.
“My questions are the most valuable IP to me. The answers are a commodity.”
That is the whole idea here. Answers are cheap now — any AI will hand you one. The scarce, valuable thing is knowing what to ask, and knowing enough to ask well. Curious, knowledgeable people use AI like a lever: the more you understand, the more it multiplies what you can do. ModernEncy exists to hand everyone that lever — free forever — and turn learners into genuine AI power-users.
Help keep it free
ModernEncy takes real work to build and will always be free to use, with no ads and no trackers. If it helps you, you can chip in or simply spread the word — either keeps it going.
ModernEncy is free forever — no ads, no paywalls, no sign-up. Like the Encyclopédie of 1751, it runs on its readers. If it's helped you, drop something in the tip jar.