analects noun, pl

/ˈan.ə.lɛkts/

a collection of ideas, extracts, or teachings.

Noetik

stuff On thinking well in a noisy world

show:

analects under the categories btrmt. believes in, as set out in the manifesto

analects organised according to the fundamental questions of philosophy

sequences of articles gathered around a more focused idea

  • ai is shit at reasoning 8 Jul 2026 [marginalium] AI is shit at reasoning. Since I wrote my article on the Enigma of (AI) Reason, this arXiv article has come out, exploring the same fundamen...
  • ai and task fragmentation 4 Jun 2026 [marginalium] AI and task fragmentation. A while back I came across the time-horizon model of AI task automation. It was a somewhat reassuring piece for p...
  • ai dark output 4 Jun 2026 [marginalium] AI Dark Output. I vacillate about how useful AI is. It’s got classic Malcolm Gladwell Shit/Karstic energy. It feels productive, for many peo...
  • ai productivity 22 May 2026 [marginalium] AI productivity. I’m pretty skeptical about AI enhancing productivity (see e.g. AI isn’t changing anything yet and the slow gains despite ap...
  • ai simulates conversations 24 Feb 2026 [marginalium] AI simulates conversations. Sometimes, when a problem is hard, LLMs with ‘thinking’ will simulate an internal conversation between different...
  • ai use and skill formation 5 Feb 2026 [marginalium] AI use and skill formation. A paper out of Anthropic’s alignment fellowship program. Coders coding with and without AI. Not super compelled...
  • against mcaskillian longtermism 10 Jul 2025 [marginalium] Against McAskillian Longtermism: Whatever is wrong with utilitarians who advocate the murder of a million for a 0.0001 percent reduction in...
  • the practical inconsequence of the free will debate 7 Jul 2025 [marginalium] The deterministic view of free will always seems to cause such furore, forgetting that whether free will exists or not, this world is so int...
  • critiquing utilitarianism 2 Jul 2025 [marginalium] I think a lot of people intuitively like the kind of “calculus of pain and pleasure” that utilitarianism offers. But it often falls short of...
  • understanding bayes 6 Jun 2025 [marginalium] An easy way to understand Bayes. It’s pictoral, based off this book review the author did. It also gets into a bunch of extraneous detail. B...
  • pitfalls of ai for information gathering 28 May 2025 [marginalium] Pitfalls of AI for information gathering. Nominally about openai’s Deep Research, but applicable to all: it excels at straightforward quest...
  • ai in the military classroom 23 May 2025 [marginalium] AI in the Military Classroom. Actually AI in all classrooms. Actually the future of AI use for anything that requires education (think consu...
  • can we trust social science yet? 23 May 2025 [marginalium] Can We Trust Social Science Yet? Short answer is no, but it’s a good introduction into where social sciences are falling down. In particular...
  • i'd rather read the prompt 16 May 2025 [marginalium] I’d Rather Read The Prompt. Another perspective on AI in assignments: You only have to read one or two of these answers to know exactly wha...
  • are sunk costs fallacies 11 May 2025 [marginalium] Are Sunk Costs Fallacies? Gwern is a pseudonymous researcher and writer who has one of the most interesting websites I’ve ever come across....
  • ai isn't changing anything yet (pdf) 1 May 2025 [marginalium] AI isn’t changing anything yet (pdf): AI chatbots have had no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation, with conf...
  • will ai automate your job 10 Apr 2025 [marginalium] Will AI automate your job? It’s called the time-horizon model, and I found it reassuring: The key idea where the American worker is concern...
  • asking the right questions 13 Mar 2025 [marginalium] On asking the right questions. This guy approaches the concept from the perspective of troubleshooting. What makes good troubleshooting? I a...
  • ai is puncturing conspiracy theories 7 Mar 2025 [marginalium] AI is puncturing conspiracy theories: In a pair of studies involving more than 2,000 participants, the researchers found a 20 percent reduc...
  • should corporations save the ivory tower 17 Feb 2025 [marginalium] Should corporations save the ivory tower? Unfortunately, the research we see today is of a different nature. In a section titled “Invention...
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