The (Unofficial) Rationality: A-Z Anki Deck
I’m a huge fan of Anki. I love being able to remember what I read for however long I want to. However, most Anki decks I’ve found about rationality are nonexistent, unhelpful, out of date, or poorly formatted.
Recently, I found this post from 2023 that used GPT-4 to make a Rationality: From AI to Zombies deck, but I found the cards so long, obtuse, and unusable that it made me want to do better.
After dozens of hours making a custom Python package to generate cards with GPT-4o-mini, followed by having Claude Sonnet 4 revise, reduce, and reconsolidate the cards, I am proud to present:
The (Unofficial) Rationality: From AI to Zombies Deck, available from AnkiWeb or Google Drive.
I definitely spent way longer than I needed to in making this, but I’m really happy with the result. I think it’s a definite improvement over existing shared decks, and I hope it can be of benefit to others too.
I also enjoyed making my Articles to Anki python package, which automatically generates and exports Anki cards from URLs or local files. There are definitely still some improvements to be made[1], but it is functional, useful, and developing it did a lot to bring me up to speed with coding with LLM assistance.
If this is well received or I find it personally useful, I’ll probably make some more decks for rationalist content. Let me know if you have any requests or feedback!
- ^
Help is very much welcome. It was mostly Sonnet 4 and I flying by the seat of our pants.
if you are confident in the quality of this deck I suggest you comment on the first post of the sequences so people getting into it can have a chance of using the deck while reading.
lmk if you made a comment so I can upvote it
Thank you for sharing the Anki deck. I also enjoy using Anki to record insightful ideas from articles I read. However, my programming skills are limited, so I haven’t found a way to batch-generate Anki cards from articles. As a native Chinese speaker currently reading more English content, my current workflow involves using iOS Shortcuts to generate a Markdown file from an article, then sending it to ChatGPT for a Chinese summary. If necessary, I’ll ask ChatGPT to generate a CSV document for importing into Anki.
My prompt ensures the generated cards support both Chinese and English while preserving the original text for easy reference. Here’s the prompt （translated in English）:
```
You are a learning science coach and Anki flashcard design expert. Based on the article content I provided above, please generate high-quality Anki cards according to the following requirements:
------
Card Creation Principles
1. Anki Best Practices for Card Creation:
◦ Generate a separate card for each fact or idea (minimum information principle).
◦ If the original text includes examples, sources, authorities, analogies, metaphors, or contextual details, create additional Q&A cards to ensure no key information is omitted.
◦ Core ideas and supporting details should complement each other; vary question formats, prioritize active recall, and avoid recognition-based or multiple-choice questions.
◦ Provide concise annotations or context for technical terms or ambiguous content.
◦ If a single sentence contains multiple knowledge points, split them into separate cards appropriately—avoid fragmentation or redundancy.
◦ Keep language concise and structure clear.
2. Each card must include an excerpt from the original text for traceability (limit to 200 words).
------
Output Format
Strictly output in pipe-separated CSV format (no headers). Each card occupies one row, with the following fields:
• Field 1: Question (bilingual Chinese & English, separated by <br>)
• Field 2: Answer (bilingual Chinese & English, separated by <br>)
• Field 3: Article URL with text fragment (format: ArticleURL#:~:text=URL-encoded Original Quote—ensure the excerpt is encoded using Python’s urllib.parse.quote() before insertion).
• Field 4: Article title
• Field 5: Author (leave blank if unavailable)
• Field 6: Original excerpt (Original Quote, ≤200 words)
------
Generation Method
1. Display all card content line by line, showing only Field 1 and Field 2 (in table format for easy review).
2. Simultaneously provide the full card data as a pipe-separated CSV file for download.
3. If a single original excerpt can be split into multiple cards, output all of them—one per row.
------
Language Requirements
• All Q&A must be bilingual (Chinese & English)—separated by <br>, with Chinese first and English supplementary.
• If the original text is in Chinese, output only Chinese (no English needed).
• Every card must retain the original excerpt (Field 6).
------
Technical Requirements
• When generating Field 3, ensure the Original Quote is URL-encoded using Python’s urllib.parse.quote().
• Directly output the final encoded result—no need to explain the encoding process.
------
```
(I clicked on the AnkiWeb link and got “This shared item is missing or currently unavailable” despite having logged in.)
UPDATE: For some reason, the notes didn’t get uploaded. I reuploaded it, and the fixed deck should be available in 24 hours.
Yes, sorry, I should have warned about this! AnkiWeb doesn’t publish shared items until 24 hours after they get shared. It should be available by tomorrow!
The deck appears to have no notes in it
Thanks for the catch. Reuploaded it just now, and it should be available in 24 hours.
Great, I’ll check it out tomorrow then. Thanks for the clarification, and also for putting this together :) hoping to share it with newcomer friends.