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Neal Stephenson
nealstephenson.substack.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2024
Neal Stephenson, the science fiction author, writes Substack essays on AI, writing, history and technology.
What HN saysCommenters link it for his views on AI, such as AI ecosystems and students relying on ChatGPT, and for an essay on saying no in art and product work.
26HN people shared it
4linked it in comments
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Most-shared posts
- 1My Prodigal Brainchild10 people · 16 points · first shared 2026 · 1 comments on HN
- 2Remarks on AI from NZ7 people · 195 points · first shared 2025 · 113 comments on HN
- 3Emerson, AI, and the Force – Neal Stephenson3 people · 8 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 4Writing by Hand is Good for your Brain2 people · 25 points · first shared 2026 · 1 comments on HN
- 5Chain Flinger2 people · 3 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 6KdK part 2: a medical mystery from postwar Germany2 people · 2 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 7A Remarkable Assertion from A16Z1 people · 358 points · first shared 2025 · 135 comments on HN
- 8The Wrongs of Thomas More1 people · 128 points · first shared 2025 · 92 comments on HN
- 9Geoengineering (Wrong 2)1 people · 37 points · first shared 2024 · 3 comments on HN
- 10Say it, don't show it1 people · 8 points · first shared 2025 · 1 comments on HN
- 11KdK part 4: Carrière's experiment1 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 12Rauch on Peirce (Wrong 3)1 people · 1 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 13Updates to Two Previous Posts1 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 14Wrong 11 people · 1 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 15Stephenson Impersonator; Minor Update1 people · 1 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
FredPret · 2025-10-16
Saying "no" to off-topic / dumb ideas in a consistent way is an amazing product development skill.
It's like carving away all of the marble that doesn't look like David.
Neal Stephenson wrote a really great Substack about art and how it's the end product of many small decisions. That's exactly what Jobs did on the hardware he worked on.
https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/idea-having-is-not-art
genghisjahn · 2025-07-15
Neal Stephenson has a recent post that covers some of this. Also links to teachers talking about many students just putting all their work into chatgpt and turning it in.
https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/emerson-ai-and-the-force
nicksergeant · 2025-06-11
Reminds me of Neal Stephenson's thoughts on the topic here: https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/remarks-on-ai-from-nz
> By training AIs to fight and defeat other AIs we can perhaps preserve a healthy balance in the new ecosystem. If I had time to do it and if I knew more about how AIs work, I’d be putting my energies into building AIs whose sole purpose was to predate upon existing AI models by using every conceivable strategy to feed bogus data into them, interrupt their power supplies, discourage investors, and otherwise interfere with their operations. Not out of malicious intent per se but just from a general belief that everything should have to compete, and that competition within a diverse ecosystem produces a healthier result in the long run than raising a potential superpredator in a hermetically sealed petri dish where its every need is catered to.
simonw · 2025-05-18
Original source I quoted from is https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/remarks-on-ai-from-nz