writing
Prose as thinking: writing well, writing by hand while a model offers to do it, and who will still be able to.
FilterEveryone, all time139 from 76 people
- BD
Brad DeLong quoted
Economics professor at the University of California
Their wordsErnest Renan’s grim lesson about the necessity of historical forgetfulness applies not just to nations but to all human communities seeking peace an proserity: memory weaponized becomes a veto on human prosperity, peace, and life.
- 11 days earlier
- GR
Guillermo Rauch quoted
CEO of Vercel; creator of Next.js and Socket.IO
Their wordsWe run a real risk that *reading* gets entirely discounted, because of the exhaustion of getting low-quality and unverified AI prose being thrown at you all the time.
- 2 days earlier
- PG
Paul Graham quoted
Co-founder of Y Combinator and Viaweb
Their wordsWhat's the use of a style guide that doesn't understand current educated usage? Usage is the whole point of a style guide.
- 3 days earlier
- SA
Scott Alexander quoted
Essayist; writes Astral Codex Ten
Their wordsI think there’s a general understanding that using AI in what is at least partly a writing contest is against the spirit of the exercise.
- 1 day earlier
- JS
John Scalzi quoted
American science fiction novelist (Old Man's War
Their wordsno, I don't think AI will keep me from hitting any of these anniversaries as a working writer, unless it triggers the apocalypse, in which case we have other problems.
↗50th Anniversaries and When I’ll Hit Themwhatever.scalzi.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- CM
Craig Mod quoted
Writer, photographer and software maker based in Japan
Their wordsThere are no other writers who have done this as successfully as Annie, whose particular angle on literature and nature was sui generis.
↗[RIDGELINE] Walking with Anniecraigmod.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- GR
Gretchen Rubin quoted
Writer on happiness, habits and human nature
Their wordsAn idea expressed in rhyme seems more convincing, which is why "Haste makes waste" is more compelling than "Hurrying fosters error."
↗How to Tackle a Nagging Task: Power Hour!gretchenrubin.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
- RS
Richard Stallman quoted
Founder of the Free Software Movement and the GNU Project
Their wordsTo suppose that this rock art image has a precise message encoded in little details, as writing would have, has no factual basis that I know of.
↗Urgent: Raise the Wage Actstallman.org 1st of 10 in this piece
- BT
Brandon Taylor quoted
American novelist and critic, author of Real Life
Their wordsI would argue that what makes fiction feel like fiction is a certain degree of contrivance.
↗labyrinthmaxxing and minotaur hoursblgtylr.substack.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
- 2 days earlier
- ML
Michael Lopp quoted
Engineering manager who has worked at Apple, Netscape
Their wordsGood writing captures voice. Good writing documents how another human thinks.
↗Robots Have No Voicerandsinrepose.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- TL
Tobias Lütke quoted
Co-founder and CEO of Shopify
Their wordsat least for non uh fiction I walked away from books written recently I think everything written recently is really just like the product of its time
↗Tobi Lütke: The Skills AI Makes More Valuableyoutube.com 26th of 26 in this recording
- TP
Thomas Ptacek quoted
Security engineer; founder of Matasano Security and Latacora
Their wordsIncreased reliance on CFAA prosecutions for public policy goals couldn't possibly be a cursed monkey's paw situation, said no practitioner in this space ever.
- 7 days earlier
- AH
Ann Handley quoted
Wall Street Journal bestselling author on marketing and writing
Their wordsVoice isn't something you add to the writing. It's what's left when you stop editing yourself out of it.
↗Make Posteingänge Sexy Again: 9 Ingredients for an Email Readers Want to Openannhandley.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- PG
Paul Graham quoted
Their wordsif you have good enough transitions, an essay will feel as if it has a good structure. And vice versa: when readers complain about lack of structure, the reason is often simply that they're bothered by clumsy or abrupt transitions.
- 1 day earlier
- LM
Lincoln Michel quoted
Novelist and critic, author of The Body Scout and Metallic…
Their wordsThe methods we choose to use to compose the work determine the final work as much as any decision by a painter or musician.
↗Sweat the Technique: On Writing Process and Possibilitiescountercraft.substack.com 1st of 2 in this piece
- 2 days earlier
- SG
Scott Greenfield quoted
New York criminal defence lawyer, in practice since 1982
Their wordsOnce the prosecution has had, and has lost, the opportunity to make its case, double jeopardy should attach and prevent a retrial.
↗Retrial Isn’t Double Jeopardy (But It Should Be)blog.simplejustice.us 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 4 days earlier
- RB
Radley Balko quoted
Investigative journalist writing on policing
Our readingForensic experts exposed as frauds, and the prosecutors who keep using them, face no consequences.
Their wordsAnd while some courts have ruled that Hayne and West aren’t credible experts, the two men never faced any real accountability.
↗The framing of Chris Duncanradleybalko.substack.com 1st of 4 in this piece
- DT
Derek Thompson quoted
Writer and podcaster; co-author of Abundance with Ezra…
Their wordsThe act of writing is an act of thinking, and to automate our paragraphs is to populate our screens with words without filling our minds with the ideas necessary to conceive of them.
↗We Can't Let AI Writing Take Over the Internetderekthompson.org 1st of 3 in this piece
- GO
Gergely Orosz quoted
Writes The Pragmatic Engineer
Their wordsWriting is thinking, and we are interested in your own thoughts and observations, not a sharp, one-sentence observation turned into three paragraphs of blob text by an LLM.
↗How software engineering is changing: an essay challengeblog.pragmaticengineer.com
- RB
Radley Balko quoted
Their wordsProsecutors tended to choose doctors they could trust to give them the results they wanted.
↗The framing of Chris Duncanradleybalko.substack.com 2nd of 4 in this piece
- GO
Gergely Orosz quoted
Their wordsThe reason for this hardline stance is that we believe in the value of human thought and experience, as told by people with first-hand knowledge. It’s also about the audience: The “audience” for AI-written code is usually a machine, whereas the writing in Pragmatic Engineer is for humans, by humans. AI produces a statistical average in its output which creates uniform, dull text that’s an inferior reading experience to human writing – at least today it is.
↗How software engineering is changing: an essay challengeblog.pragmaticengineer.com
- 3 days earlier
- DD
Daniel W. Drezner quoted
Political scientist writing Drezner’s World on international relations
Their wordsI am extremely concerned that this trend will eliminate paper-writing as an assignment, and that is a core function of most professions requiring a graduate degree.
↗The Professor and the Plutocrat and AIdanieldrezner.substack.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
- DD
Daniel W. Drezner quoted
Their wordsThe dirty secret is that many professors do not write their own op-eds.
↗The Professor and the Plutocrat and AIdanieldrezner.substack.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 5 days earlier
- AH
Ann Handley quoted
Our readingOriginal human-written text that has not been touched by AI is becoming increasingly valuable.
Their wordsAnyway, the bottom line is that human-written language reliably untainted by AI is becoming valuable.
↗Don’t Outsource This Part of Writingannhandley.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 3 days earlier
- PG
Paul Graham quoted
Their wordsThere may not be many people left in 10 years who can write, or want to read, things longer than a page or two. But there will be at least a few of us, and we'll be a powerful club.
- 1 day earlier
- MH
Max Hodak quoted
Co-founder and chief executive of Science
Their wordsWell, I mean first of all, I think that talking or writing is thinking.
↗From Restoring Sight to Reimagining the Brain, with Max Hodakyoutube.com 17th of 18 in this recording
- 1 day earlier
- AO
Addy Osmani quoted
Engineering leader and author who spent 14 years at Google
Their wordsthe models are going to in some cases, I think, provide a homogeneous take on what writing looks like. And you start to feel like, wait, what was my writing style, you know?
↗From Chrome DevTools to AI Engineering, with Addy Osmaniyoutube.com 21st of 22 in this recording
- 7 days earlier
- NL
Nathan Lambert quoted
Machine-learning researcher on open language models
Their wordsModels being stagnant in long-form, non-fiction writing should be alarming to those reliant on models autonomously solving grand, open science problems in the near future.
↗I wrote an AI textbook — how long until AI can do it better?interconnects.ai 1st of 3 in this piece
- AS
Anthony Sculimbrene quoted
Lawyer and everyday-carry gear reviewer who publishes scored knife
Their wordsThere has also been an uptick in product shills, which, in some ways is worse than AI stuff-some human actually put effort into making straight garbage.
- CM
Charity Majors quoted
Co-founder and CTO of Honeycomb
Their wordsAnd I have decided not to sink anymore because writing is thinking on paper. And there's no shortcut for doing that thinking.
↗Stop being skeptical about AI for development with Charity Majorsyoutube.com 20th of 26 in this recording