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jsheard

Since the commit history is public, there's a much easier way to tell that AI had a hand in writing that list.

https://github.com/a16z-infra/reading-list/commit/93bc3abb04...

> opus descriptions in cursor, raw

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That version is more sensible. Opus generated:

> Warning: his endings are notoriously abrupt, like a segfault in the middle of your favorite function.

In commit e4d022[0], the wording changed to:

> Fair warning: most of these books famously don't have endings (they literally stop mid-sentence during a normal plot arc).

It's unclear what led to that change, as the commit message is just "stephenson".

It went through a few more minor edits to get to what's currently published.

https://github.com/a16z-infra/reading-list/commit/e4d022d592...

matt-bornstein's commits in that repo do often start off with ai-generated descriptions which he then edits down. there are notes on some commits that say things like "AI GENERATED NEED TO EDIT". the other contributors' changes don't have these tells.

while it should come as no surprise to have software written by llms, if these books are in fact just picked by llms then what's the point of this list?

I don’t see any evidence the LLM picked the list of books, it instead was used to update/add descriptions of the books and series.

That's almost more damning. The list was created by humans, who presumably read the books, but then couldn't be bothered to summarize the very books they read? Either the human is really lazy ("read" the book but can't be bothered to write a short summary) or really really lazy (didn't read the book but felt a summary was necessary). Either way, it makes this list less interesting, at the very least because it doesn't need to exist at all if someone can just ask an LLM "list and describe books that A16Z might think are valuable to read" and get the same quality output.

> if these books are in fact just picked by llms then what's the point of this list?

How do you do, fellow nerds?

I’d be curious what the point is even if it were written by humans with some evidence of non-zero effort, but posting something with no point and no effort is really puzzling.

It serves as a form of virtue signaling. “Look at all these super nerdy books I don’t just read, but consider myself an authority on”.

Low effort is the name of the game in the age of modern LLMs.

   Stephenson doesn't just write sci-fi, he writes operating manuals for the future. His books predicted cryptocurrency, the metaverse, and distributed computing before most of us knew what TCP/IP stood for. Warning: his endings are notoriously abrupt, like a segfault in the middle of your favorite function.

This really is a study in AI slop. At least they had the good sense to change it.

How did his books PREDICT crypto when we had eCash way before any of his books? SMH.

Most of his books are also dystopias, not operating manuals.

Can A16Z tell the difference? Insert that meme "At long last, we have created the Torment Nexus, from the classic sci-fi novel, Don't Create the Torment Nexus".

a16z and others like them never met a dystopian warning they didn't interpret as a titillating invitation to an uncomfortably exciting and inevitable future!

a16z seems to view turning society into a dystopia as a goal, so that makes sense. Their portfolio includes:

- DoubleSpeed, a bot farm as a service provider, allowing customers to orchestrate social media activity across thousands of fake accounts to create artificial consensus on the topic of their choice. Never pay a human again!

- Cheddr, the TikTok of sports gambling, whose differentiating feature is allowing users under 21. Place live in-game bets with just a swipe!

- Coverd, a new type of credit card where you can wipe off bills by betting on your favorite gambling games in their app. No VPN required!

> Cheddr

> Coverd

Even worse, they're bringing Web 2.0 startup names back...

Wow, I just checked the doublespeed website and it is comically evil. The footer says — verbatim, and in huge letters — "never pay a human again." (I'm not selectively quoting; it's a full sentence, despite their weird capitalization.)

If Neal Stephenson tried to write a villain this on-the-nose, his editor would tell him to tone it down.

Yeah, which book are we talking about? Reamde features crypto heavily, but I remember having bitcoins at the time it came out.

I imagine this is intended (though if it's AI-generated "intended" doesn't really apply) as a reference 1999's Cryptonomicon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptonomicon

From that Wikipedia summary:

> Their goal is to facilitate anonymous Internet banking using electronic money and (later) digital gold currency

Ah, yeah, I missed that one.

Digital Cash was invented by David Chaum in 1982, and developed by his company DigiCash in 1990. I read about it years before Cryptonomicon.

When they changed it is also when they misspelled his name. Opus got it right. I was surprised Stephenson took the misspelling as an AI tell.

To a version that managed to typo his name.

Man... "Write a book recommendation for people who like The Big Bang Theory".

I’m gonna start thinking “Bazinga!” every time someone says something borderline ai-sloppy

I Have No Ability To Unread Things And I Must Unread

It is appalling writing. Given that Opus is capable of a lot better than this, it seems likely they’re prompting it to be terrible.

https://github.com/a16z-infra/reading-list/commit/717b3d64d6...

> [THIS IS AI GENERATED, NEED TO EDIT] The manga that asked [...]

They do at least have "NEED TO EDIT" in there, but this prose was openly generated by AI as a starting point.

I don't see any pull request fixing this yet.

I felt obligated to submit a fix: https://github.com/a16z-infra/reading-list/pull/9

Used Claude to fact-check and fix errors that were likely introduced by Cursor.

The circle is complete.

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