alt Hacker NewsI did actually read all 40 pages of it. I frequently read law journal articles, among with lots of other types of journals and papers.
I also used to maintain up to date reading lists of various areas (compiler optimization, for example) because I would read so many of the papers.
Let me give you a piece of advice:
First, gather facts, then respond.
Here you start by sarcastically asserting i wouldn't have read it, but it would generally be better to ask if i read it (fact gathering), and then devise a response based on my answer. Because your assertion is simply wrong, making the rest of it even sillier.
As for the strawman about the bible - i'm kinda surprised you are really trying to equate not reading any part of something with not reading every part of something, and really trying to defend what you did here, instead of just owning up to it and moving on.
This speaks a lot more about you than anything else.
That said -
When you make a claim covering that everything in a book is the literal truth, you only have to find a part that is not the literal truth to prove the claim wrong. Which may or may not require reading the entire thing to start (if it turns out your counter-claim is wrong, you at least have to read and find another)
In the original comment, you'll note your claim was "This is nothing but speculation" - IE all of the paper is speculation.
If we are being accurate, this would require you reading the entire thing to be able to say all of it is speculation. How could you know otherwise?
Even if we were being nice, and treat your claim colloquially as meaning "most of it is speculation", this would still require reading some of the paper, which you didn't do either.
Perhaps you should just quit while you are behind, and learn that when you screw up, the correct thing to do is say "yeah, i screwed up, i should have read it before saying that", instead of trying to double down on it.
Doubling down like this just makes you look worse.
As an aside - I was always an avid reader, and very bored in synagogue, so i have read every word of a number of books of the hebrew bible because it was more interesting than paying attention to the sermons.
Replies
> Even if we were being nice, and treat your claim colloquially as meaning "most of it is speculation", this would still require reading some of the paper, which you didn't do either.
I did read a some of it. The abstract. Which is there for the specific purpose of providing readers a summary to decide whether it is worth their time to read the whole thing.
And, yeah, obviously I didn't mean literally all because that just isn't how people talk. e.g. the author's names are not speculation. But the central premise of the paper "How AI Destroys Institutions" is speculative unless they provide a list of institutions that have been destroyed by AI and prove that they have. The institutions they list, "the rule of law, universities, and a free press," have not been destroyed by AI, so therefore, the central claim of the paper is speculative. And speculation on how new tech breakthroughs will play out is generally useless, the classic example being "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers," by the CEO of IBM.
Furthermore their claim here: > The real superpower of institutions is their ability to evolve and adapt within a hierarchy of authority and a framework for roles and rules while maintaining legitimacy in the knowledge produced and the actions taken. Purpose-driven institutions built around transparency, cooperation, and accountability empower individuals to take intellectual risks and challenge the status quo.
This just completely contradicts any experience I have ever had with such institutions. Especially "empower individuals to take intellectual risks and challenge the status quo". Yeah. If you believe that, then I've got a bridge to sell you. These guys are some serious koolaid drinkers. Large institutions are where creativity and risk taking go to die. So yeah, not reading 40 pages by these guys.
You can tell a lot from a summary, and the entire premise that you have to read a huge paper to criticize is just bullshit in general.
His criticism that the paper is speculation is spot on. Many of the references don't support the claims they are cited for. It's fascinating to me that you want to argue the poster's standing to make a criticism more than you want to actually discuss the content of the paper.