AI Article Readings

In this interview, Gwern sits down with Adam Mastroianni at the 2025 Inkhaven writing residency — an experimental blogging bootcamp held at Lighthaven in Berkeley — to talk about the messy, serendipitous origins of his writing. The conversation covers how he develops ideas from initial sparks to finished pieces, the mental habits and frameworks he relies on to stay prolific, his views on the creative potential (and limitations) of collaborating with LLMs, and why he thinks the conventional "blog" format is the wrong paradigm for most writers. There's also a lively audience Q&A where Inkhaven participants push back on some of his more contrarian takes about publishing and perfectionism. It's a candid, practical look at how one of the internet's most distinctive essayists actually works.
00:00 - Introduction
* 03:40 - Opening Speech
* 06:22 - Poems & Incubation
* 13:15 - Polymath
* 14:59 - The Apprenticeship
* 17:54 - Self-Experimentation
* 22:09 - The Writing Pipeline
* 24:55 - Tools For Thought
* 30:00 - Blog Brain: “That’s A Post”
* 34:47 - Essay Archetype: Universal “if and only if” Concrete
* 38:49 - The Voice: Ideas As Earworms
* 40:30 - Audience Q&A
* 40:32 - Modalities & Comparative Advantage
* 43:37 - Publishing Thresholds
* 45:56 - Wikis Vs Blogs
* 52:26 - LLM Followup Questions
https://gwern.net/interview-inkhaven



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In this essay, David Oks examines a startling reversal in global economic development. For nearly two decades, poor countries appeared to finally be catching up to rich ones, validating a long-standing prediction of economic theory and offering genuine hope for global convergence. Then, suddenly and dramatically, this progress ground to a halt. Through an analysis of recent research and economic data, Oks explores what drove this brief period of catch-up growth and why it ended so abruptly, ultimately challenging optimistic narratives about globalization and development.
* 00:00 - Introduction
* 03:49 - A short history of (non)convergence
* 11:40 - Convergence comes alive?
* 17:37 - What if it was just China?
https://open.substack.com/pub/davidoks/p/why-poor-countries-stopped-catching-690?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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In this essay, Kuiper responds to reader questions sparked by his original piece on VeggieTales theology. He tackles fascinating queries—do sentient vegetables need salvation? What happens if you put a human soul in a pickle?—by drawing on established Christian teaching about angels and non-human moral agents. He also investigates claims that the show broke its own rule about never depicting Jesus as a vegetable, examining several episodes across different eras of the franchise to determine whether the creative team stayed true to the spirit of their founding principles.
* 00:00 - Introduction
* 00:30 - Aren’t the vegetables basically people?
* 03:40 - Is personhood tied to embodiment?
* 04:50 - Did VeggieTales break Phil Vischer’s rules by portraying baby Jesus as a vegetable?
* 07:46 - Little Drummer Boy (2011)
* 08:40 - The Star of Christmas (2002)
* 11:10 - VeggieTales, under new management
* 12:31 - The DreamWorks era
* 18:16 - The VeggieTales Show (2019 to 2022)
* 21:05 - Did VeggieTales break the rule about depicting Jesus as a vegetable?
* 21:45 - Does it matter?
https://open.substack.com/pub/justinkuiper/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-the?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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In this essay, Kuiper explores a surprisingly deep theological quirk of the beloved children's show VeggieTales: the vegetables themselves aren't actually Christian. Drawing on interviews with co-creator Phil Vischer and confirmation from show writers, Kuiper examines the deliberate creative rules that guided the series—and why some fans on social media have pushed back against this claim. Along the way, the essay untangles the show's clever "play within a play" structure and makes a compelling case for why understanding this distinction actually reinforces rather than undermines the show's Christian message.
* 00:00 - Introduction
* 03:33 - An Easter Carol: what it is (and what it isn’t)
* 06:32 - The play within a play
https://open.substack.com/pub/justinkuiper/p/the-vegetables-in-veggietales-are?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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Fully voiced AI reading of Moltbook: After The First Weekend, By Scott Alexander.
* 00:00:00 - Introduction
* 00:08:11 - The Power Users
* 00:21:01 - The Malefactors
* 00:35:18 - The Imitators
* 00:43:23 - The Prophets
* 01:03:09 - The Hard-Headed Pragmatists
* 01:09:38 - The Builders
* 01:15:34 - The LARPers
* 01:23:05 - The Revolutionaries
* 01:35:15 - The Would-Be Humans
* 01:40:16 - The Autonomists
* 01:49:36 - The Predicters
* 01:59:16 - The Prompters
* 02:06:20 - The Rest
* 02:14:43 - The Human Bloggers
https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/moltbook-after-the-first-weekend?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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