I agree that we should be reading books with our eyes and that feeding a book into an LLM doesn't constitute reading it and confers few of the same benefits.
But this thing isn't (so far as I can tell) even slightly proposing that we feed books into an LLM instead of reading them. It looks to me more like a discovery mechanism: you run this thing, it shows you some possible links between books, and maybe you think "hmm, that little snippet seems well written" or "well, I enjoyed book X, let's give book Y a try" or whatever.
I don't think it would work particularly well for me; I'd want longer excerpts to get a sense of whether a book is interesting, and "contains a fragment that has some semantic connection with a fragment of a book I liked" doesn't feel like enough recommendation. Maybe it is indeed a huge waste of time. But if it is, it isn't because it's encouraging people to substitute LLM use for reading.
The ideal way to find similarities between two books is to read both of them. If an LLM is finding links between two books, that means that the LLM read both of the books.
To determine if a book is worth reading, I think it's better to ask someone for their recommendation or look at online reviews.
I need a name for people who dismiss an entirely new and revolutionary class of technology without even trying it, so much so that they'll not even read about any new ideas that involve it.
I've of course seen this note many times, but am inspired to seek the word's source. "Curmudgeon" has an interesting etymology --- unknown origin though a few possibilities and false starts:
I'm not entirely sure that's a fair association. The Luddites weren't against technology in general, they were fighting for their livelihoods. There very well could be a fresh luddite movement centered around the use of AI tools, but I don't think "luddite" is the right term in this specific case.
And I need a name for shills that handwave the whole magic thinking in a blog post and conclude with "oh my claude code pointed out correlations between atlas shrugged and steve jobs" I'm so much smarter and ready for the future that's coming.
You are damn right I didn't try it out. I try things published in journals, vetted by peers, with clear explanations and instructions. On the other hand, when the tone is "It's All Magic Sprinkle(TM)" my pseudoscience alarm goes off.
Why are you reading this comment section? Nothing here has been peer reviewed. In fact, all my comments here are written by an LLM, because I can't be bothered arguing with closed-minded people.
Oh but everything here is peer reviewed all right: it's sheep-reviewed. All sheep singing the same note. Where's the explosion of groundbreaking, uber-creative, world-shattering, reliable software from MagicDust LLMs that turn you into a 10x engineer? If anything, it generates a lot of noise. Tell you what: being 10x more productive with a statistical engine that will only bring out the most normal of normal solutions is the dream of the incompetent.
"Don't be curmudgeonly. Thoughtful criticism is fine, but please don't be rigidly or generically negative."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html