I fed Fable this essayand asked it to search online for other reviews, and then identify points neither I nor other reviewers have covered. It was surprisingly able to identify several. It was able to identify one point my friends and I discussed after I published the post (but with a somewhat different and complementary frame), one point I considered but underrated the importance of, and one point I never considered before. It also made one point that I believe is wrong. Still, ¾ is very good.
They weren’t minor points either! By my lights the insight density is incredibly high. Arguably higher than almost every other review of Chiang.
Keep in mind I read Chiang’s fiction many times and I’ve read literally dozens of high-effort reviews, including ones by English professors published in places like The New Yorker, by semi-famous tech bloggers (including one who’s now a senior researcher at Claude’s parent company), etc. So it’s quite a high bar to be beating.
I fed Fable this essay and asked it to search online for other reviews, and then identify points neither I nor other reviewers have covered. It was surprisingly able to identify several. It was able to identify one point my friends and I discussed after I published the post (but with a somewhat different and complementary frame), one point I considered but underrated the importance of, and one point I never considered before. It also made one point that I believe is wrong. Still, ¾ is very good.
They weren’t minor points either! By my lights the insight density is incredibly high. Arguably higher than almost every other review of Chiang.
Keep in mind I read Chiang’s fiction many times and I’ve read literally dozens of high-effort reviews, including ones by English professors published in places like The New Yorker, by semi-famous tech bloggers (including one who’s now a senior researcher at Claude’s parent company), etc. So it’s quite a high bar to be beating.
Could you share the conversation?