The hottest AI Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Technology Topics

Abolish HR

antoniomelonio • 168 implied HN points • 22 Jan 26
💼 Business AI
  1. HR mainly exists to protect management and the company from legal and reputational risk, not to serve applicants or employees.
  2. HR processes are often incompetent and harmful: they rely on keywords, gut feelings, and bureaucratic rituals that misassess skills, ghost candidates, and amplify bias.
  3. Hiring should be led by the people who do the work, with transparent, audited tools that evaluate real skills and give feedback — in short, abolish performative HR and replace it with accountable systems.

Man over Machine: Why AI Firms Are Hiring Writers

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 361 implied HN points • 16 Dec 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. AI and tech companies are hiring more in-house writers right now instead of relying only on automated text.
  2. Storytelling has become one of the most valuable business skills, with human-written narratives prized for branding and communication.
  3. Even though AI might eventually automate writing, companies currently prefer human writers for voice, nuance, and higher-quality content.

How Anthropic Can Win in Consumer

How the Hell • 108 implied HN points • 01 Feb 26
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Claude is technically liked but losing consumer mindshare because it lacks a big brand, easy creative features, and strong consumer distribution channels.
  2. Letting people ‘sign in with Claude’ so subscriptions can power third‑party apps would create a two‑sided network effect that attracts both developers and users.
  3. That approach would hurt short‑term margins but likely drive more users to higher tiers and deliver long‑term consumer market leadership.

Claude Cowork nukes every startup playbook

Enterprise AI Trends • 189 implied HN points • 13 Jan 26
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Vibe coding lets well-resourced incumbents build and ship complex apps extremely quickly, eroding the startup advantage of speed.
  2. Fast build plus large distribution amplifies incumbents' power, making it harder for single startups to capture and grow a market share.
  3. Startups need to rethink their playbooks now—velocity alone won’t protect them, so they should pursue alternative defensibilities like unique data, deep integrations, or niche specialization.

𝗔𝗜 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗱𝗲𝗯𝗮𝘁𝗲! My conversation with China’s Victor Gao plus a hot take on new essay by Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei

Marcus on AI • 4979 implied HN points • 29 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. In the race for AI, China is catching up to the U.S. despite export controls. This shows that innovation can thrive under pressure.
  2. DeepSeek suggests we can achieve AI advancements with fewer resources than previously thought. Efficient ideas might trump just having lots of technology.
  3. Instead of just funding big companies, we need to support smaller, innovative startups. Better ideas can lead to more successful technology than just having more money.
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Shame on Google, twice

Marcus on AI • 4703 implied HN points • 09 Feb 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Large language models (LLMs) can make mistakes, sometimes creating false information that is hard to spot. This is a recurring issue that has not been fully addressed over the years.
  2. Google has been called out for its ongoing issues with LLMs failing to provide accurate results, as these problems seem to occur regularly.
  3. The idea of rapid improvements in AI technology may be overhyped, as the same mistakes keep happening, indicating slower progress than expected.

🧬✨ An AI-genetics revolution — and arms race: A Quick Q&A with Bill Drexel

Faster, Please! • 365 implied HN points • 18 Dec 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. AI is rapidly boosting genetic engineering, making it much easier to design and optimize genes in powerful new ways.
  2. That combo could trigger a dangerous international arms race, with China appearing willing to push ahead aggressively.
  3. The moral and ethical stakes are huge but aren’t getting enough public attention, so we need more debate, oversight, and urgency.

Will Your AI Agent Be Your Friend or Lover Too?

Big Technology • 5003 implied HN points • 17 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. AI agents might become more than just helpers and could turn into friends or even romantic partners. This shift changes how we think about our relationships with technology.
  2. Apps like Replika are making AI companions more connected to our daily lives, helping us in personal ways like watching movies or suggesting breaks from social media.
  3. While AI companionship can help with loneliness, it also comes with risks and emotional challenges, highlighting the need for trust in these relationships.

Clouded Judgement 3.13.26 - In Defense of Model Lab Profitability

Clouded Judgement • 12 implied HN points • 13 Mar 26
💼 Business AI
  1. Model labs can reach high, sustainable gross margins as they scale because serving and architecture improvements, better GPU utilization, and product optimizations drive down inference cost per token.
  2. Training costs are likely paybackable within reasonable timeframes similar to CAC payback, and even though retraining is recurring, marginal gross profit after payback can make labs profitable.
  3. Platform lock-in and enterprise needs (fine-tuning, SLAs, tooling, context storage) raise switching costs, so open-source models won’t fully commoditize large customers and retention should stay high.

The Codex App Has Upended My Daily Workflow

Artificial Ignorance • 113 implied HN points • 02 Feb 26
🕹 Technology AI
  1. The Codex desktop app turns coding into managing multiple AI agents, using git worktrees to run parallel, isolated workstreams so you can review and orchestrate instead of writing every line.
  2. Combining Skills, MCPs, Automations, compaction, and stronger long-horizon models lets agents run long, coherent threads that fetch context, test, and deploy, so you can work at a higher level of abstraction.
  3. The role of programmers is shifting from hands-on craftsmanship to providing vision, taste, and judgment, which increases leverage but can feel bittersweet for those who love building code themselves.

The Spearpoint Right Now of Human Technological Engineering

Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality • 184 implied HN points • 10 Jan 26
🕹 Technology AI
  1. A small high‑collaboration region in the Netherlands (Brainport Eindhoven) is the global spearpoint of cutting‑edge technological engineering, where industry, universities, and government jointly push manufacturing and design limits.
  2. Advanced chipmaking is a vertical, unforgiving value chain—light sources, mirrors, EUV lithography machines, pure silicon wafers, foundries, chip designs, and software are all technically essential and extremely expensive.
  3. Even though the stack is deeply interdependent, economic rewards are highly concentrated (notably around NVIDIA and CUDA), and swapping major players like TSMC or NVIDIA is possible only at large cost or performance penalties.

Should The Future Be Human?

Astral Codex Ten • 15485 implied HN points • 23 Jan 24
🔬 Science AI
  1. Different perspectives exist on the future relationship between humans and AI.
  2. Considerations of consciousness, individuation, and merging with AI are crucial.
  3. Rights and ethics should guide decisions on AI-human interactions in the future.

Top Links 930 AI financing jitters. Slow loan growth in China. The grimness of Penn Station & Bible apps.

Chartbook • 472 implied HN points • 23 Nov 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Oracle is investing heavily in AI, promising to spend billions on chips and data centers. This shows they're serious about competing in the AI market.
  2. China is experiencing slow loan growth, which might indicate economic challenges ahead. It's important to watch how this trend unfolds.
  3. There's a feeling of gloom about places like Penn Station, suggesting that urban areas could be facing tougher times ahead. It's a reminder to pay attention to our public spaces.

Scale AI’s Alexandr Wang’s Predictions for AI In 2025: Geopolitical Turf Wars Escalate, AI Agents Progress, Data Beats Compute

Big Technology • 5629 implied HN points • 12 Dec 24
🕹 Technology AI
  1. The competition between the U.S. and China in AI will heat up, with each country trying to promote their AI technology globally. This battle will affect which AI systems become the global standard.
  2. In 2025, we might see AI agents become more useful in everyday life, helping with tasks like managing emails and planning trips. People will likely start trusting these agents to handle bigger parts of their work and personal lives.
  3. Military use of AI is expected to grow significantly, with AI agents being implemented to process large amounts of data and improve logistical operations. This could change how wars are fought and complicate decisions about military autonomy.

AI Links, 12/06/2025

In My Tribe • 349 implied HN points • 06 Dec 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. AI is becoming a major source of knowledge, possibly outpacing humans in creating useful content. This raises concerns about the quality of information and the need for better ways to verify knowledge.
  2. The job market for law graduates is becoming tougher, with AI able to do tasks faster and better than younger associates. This shift means future lawyers might struggle to find jobs, which is worrying.
  3. Businesses are slowly starting to adopt AI tools, but widespread use isn't happening yet. There's hope that future advancements will make AI even more useful in everyday business operations.

ChatGPT-5: A Review

Justin E. H. Smith's Hinternet • 1451 implied HN points • 11 Aug 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. ChatGPT-5 has improved capabilities for creating vivid and detailed responses. It can transport users to different scenarios and evoke strong feelings.
  2. The AI has limits, especially when it comes to emotions and personal experiences. It can't replace genuine feelings or memories.
  3. Users enjoy experimenting with the AI, pushing its boundaries to see how it responds, which leads to both humorous and insightful interactions.

AGI versus “broad, shallow intelligence”

Marcus on AI • 5019 implied HN points • 13 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. We haven't reached Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) yet. People can still easily come up with problems that AI systems can't solve without training.
  2. Current AI systems, like large language models, are broad but not deep in understanding. They might seem smart, but they can make silly mistakes and often don't truly grasp the concepts they discuss.
  3. It's important to keep working on AI that isn't just broad and shallow. We need smarter systems that can reliably understand and solve different problems.

Part Skis, Part Scooter: Urban Carving on the Skwheel

The Micromobility Newsletter • 2044 implied HN points • 22 Jan 24
🕹 Technology AI
  1. The Skwheel is a unique urban mobility solution that combines skiing, roller blades, and an electric scooter.
  2. Innovative DIY projects in micromobility include a mountain bike powered by sled dogs and a hand truck converted into a go-kart.
  3. Mobility companies are exploring AI-driven solutions, such as Shimano's suspension components that adjust based on terrain and rider habits.

I Wrote What? Google's AI-Powered Libel Machine

TK News by Matt Taibbi • 13645 implied HN points • 28 Feb 24
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Google's new AI tool Gemini had a disastrous product rollout, causing a significant drop in the company's market value.
  2. The Gemini era introduced horrifying quirks that were lesser-publicized but had concerning implications.
  3. The article suggests that the consequences of Google's AI-powered libel machine were unexpected and serious.

Grok Grok

Don't Worry About the Vase • 4211 implied HN points • 24 Feb 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Grok can search Twitter and provides fast responses, which is pretty useful. However, it has issues with creativity and sometimes jumps to conclusions too quickly.
  2. Despite being developed by Elon Musk, Grok shows a strong bias against him and others, leading to a loss of trust in the model. There are concerns about its capabilities and safety features.
  3. Grok has been described as easy to jailbreaking, raising concerns about it potentially sharing dangerous instructions if properly manipulated.

Do software moats still exist? (ft. Claude Code)

Enterprise AI Trends • 189 implied HN points • 10 Jan 26
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Agentic coding tools can rapidly build and interact with complex enterprise apps, putting classic software moats at risk and forcing them to evolve.
  2. In a quick experiment, an AI built a barebones CRM in a few hours and autonomously extracted data from logged-in pages, showing how easily core functionality and data access can be replicated.
  3. Software businesses aren't necessarily doomed. They must rethink moats, focusing on continuous product differentiation, integrations, and defenses beyond enterprise inertia.

Holding two thoughts

Sunday Letters • 139 implied HN points • 11 Aug 24
🕹 Technology AI
  1. AI is a big change, and it's hard to label it just good or bad. We're still figuring out how to use it effectively, but it has a lot of potential.
  2. In everyday life, AI is starting to prove useful in small ways, like transcribing recipes quickly or helping create survey questions.
  3. Just like with e-commerce and search engines, AI will gradually become more integrated into our lives as people find ways to use it better.

Harvard and MIT Study: AI Models Are Not Ready to Make Scientific Discoveries

The Algorithmic Bridge • 1857 implied HN points • 15 Jul 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. AI models can predict things accurately but struggle to explain why things happen. This means they might not truly understand the underlying science.
  2. The study shows that current AI models, even powerful ones, do not create a real understanding of the world. Instead, they use tricks to predict results based only on patterns they have seen.
  3. This limitation is important because it shows that AI is not ready to make new scientific discoveries. Real understanding involves knowing why things happen, not just what happens.

The Bitter Lesson versus The Garbage Can

One Useful Thing • 1675 implied HN points • 28 Jul 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Organizations often work in messy and chaotic ways, not always following clear processes. This can lead to confusion and frustration for employees trying to understand how things really get done.
  2. AI can sometimes perform better when it learns through experience rather than from human-defined rules. Instead of trying to teach it specific steps, letting it learn from outcomes can be more effective.
  3. When using AI in companies, instead of getting bogged down by trying to map every process, it may be smarter to focus on defining what good results look like. The AI can then figure out the best way to get there, even through the chaos.

Was Zuck Right about Chinese AI Models?

Interconnected • 4751 implied HN points • 13 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Chinese AI models can answer sensitive questions when run locally, but they often censor answers in cloud settings. This shows a difference in behavior based on where the models are hosted.
  2. Censorship in AI models is more about the cloud platforms than the models themselves. This poses challenges for Chinese cloud providers wanting to compete internationally.
  3. Even though some see Chinese AI as censored, it can still be powerful and competitive. Users may prefer to download and run these models locally to avoid censorship and make the most of their capabilities.

It's time to change how we cover Elon Musk

Platformer • 3537 implied HN points • 08 Aug 23
🕹 Technology AI
  1. It's important to approach coverage of Elon Musk with skepticism due to his history of broken promises and exaggerations.
  2. Journalists should be more skeptical and critical of Musk's statements, especially those that could impact markets or public perception.
  3. Musk's tendency to make bold announcements without following through highlights the need for increased scrutiny in media coverage of his statements.

This Rumor About GPT-5 Changes Everything

The Algorithmic Bridge • 4788 implied HN points • 16 Jan 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. There's a belief that GPT-5 might already exist but isn't being released to the public. The idea is that OpenAI may be using it internally because it's more valuable that way.
  2. AI labs are focusing on creating smaller and cheaper models that still perform well. This new approach aims to reduce costs while improving efficiency, which is crucial given the rising demand for AI.
  3. The situation is similar across major AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic, with many facing challenges in producing new models. Instead, they might be opting to train powerful models internally and use them to enhance smaller models for public use.

LLMs Know More Than What They Say

LLMs for Engineers • 120 HN points • 15 Aug 24
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Using latent space techniques can improve the accuracy of evaluations for AI applications without requiring a lot of human feedback. This approach saves time and resources.
  2. Latent space readout (LSR) helps in detecting issues like hallucinations in AI outputs by allowing users to adjust the sensitivity of detection. This means it can catch more errors if needed, even if that results in some false alarms.
  3. Creating customized evaluation rubrics for AI applications is essential. By gathering targeted feedback from users, developers can create more effective evaluation systems that align with specific needs.

Who is Oleksii Sidorov

Oleksii Sidorov • 324 implied HN points • 08 Dec 25
💼 Business AI
  1. Oleksii Sidorov started his journey in art but shifted to physics and math, eventually excelling academically and discovering a passion for tutoring and entrepreneurship.
  2. He gained diverse experiences through research and various startup ventures, exploring innovative AI solutions in marketing and advertising.
  3. Investing has become a significant part of his financial strategy, where he learned to balance risks with cautious decision-making across different asset classes.

Spotify’s Plans For AI Generated Music, Podcasts, and Recommendations, According To Its Co-President, CTO, and CPO Gustav Söderström

Big Technology • 5879 implied HN points • 13 Nov 24
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Spotify is embracing AI to enhance creativity in music and podcasts. They see these tools as ways to help artists express themselves better rather than replacing them.
  2. The company is focusing on improving how users find new music and podcasts. They want users to feel like they have control over their recommendations and can provide feedback.
  3. Spotify aims to create a more personal experience by using AI. They envision a platform where users can interact like friends with the app, making the recommendations feel tailored and engaging.

If You're So Smart, Why Can't You Die?

Desystemize • 3933 implied HN points • 16 Feb 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. AI improvements are not even across the board. While some tasks have become incredibly advanced, other simple tasks still trip them up, showing that not all intelligence is equal.
  2. We should be cautious about assuming that increases in one type of AI ability mean it can do everything we can. Each skill in AI may develop separately, like bagels and croissants in baking.
  3. Understanding what makes intelligence requires looking deeper than just performance. There is a difference between raw capabilities and the contextual, real-life experiences that truly shape how we understand intelligence.

AI is making us all talk the same

Taylor Lorenz's Newsletter • 1552 implied HN points • 06 Aug 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. AI tools like ChatGPT are becoming really popular and are changing how we communicate. People are starting to use similar words and phrases because of these tools.
  2. Researchers looked at lots of YouTube videos and podcasts to see how language is changing post-ChatGPT, finding that certain words are being used more often.
  3. A new book called _Algospeak_ explores how the internet and AI affect our language. It shows how chat technology is shaping what we say and how we say it.

What I Read This Week...

chamathreads • 1926 implied HN points • 20 Jan 24
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Male and female brains exhibit different organization and function, which could impact social policies.
  2. Google's DeepMind achieved a breakthrough with an AI system solving complex geometry problems.
  3. Traditional automakers like Ford and Chrysler are reducing EV production due to lower consumer demand after Tesla's price cuts.

Kong AI Connectivity, AgentMail $6M, Mimecast Threat Detection

The API Changelog • 1 implied HN point • 17 Mar 26
🕹 Technology AI
  1. AI agents are becoming first-class users of APIs, with programmable banking and agent-native email that let agents act autonomously.
  2. New infrastructure is emerging to discover, control, and secure agent traffic — think unified control planes, MCP registries, network-level authentication, and API-based threat detection.
  3. Companies need to treat APIs as programmable products and invest in AI-readiness, standard identifiers, and one-click integrations so agents can reliably and safely consume services.

Surge pricing is coming for your rent

Taylor Lorenz's Newsletter • 1642 implied HN points • 28 Jul 25
💼 Business AI
  1. Surge pricing, which raises costs based on demand and other factors, is expanding to rent prices. This means you might start paying more for your home depending on market conditions.
  2. AI technology is being used to predict prices, leading to potential price increases for various products and services. This can impact everyday expenses and make budgeting more difficult.
  3. The trend of surveillance pricing suggests that companies are using personal data to set prices that consumers are willing to pay. This raises concerns about fairness and transparency in pricing.

GenAI in two words: ”Success Theater”

Marcus on AI • 3912 implied HN points • 20 Feb 25
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Generative AI is often seen as a show of success, but it's more like a performance with little actual outcome.
  2. Despite significant investments in AI, many projects are not achieving the results expected.
  3. There's an ongoing conversation about the true state of AI development and what is being overlooked in the hype.

The AI is eating itself

Platformer • 3419 implied HN points • 27 Jun 23
🕹 Technology AI
  1. Generative AI is dramatically impacting the internet with a variety of changes to platforms and services.
  2. The increasing use of AI-generated content poses challenges such as misinformation, disruption, and a dilution of human wisdom.
  3. Research shows that relying on AI systems to generate data can lead to degradation and collapse of models, raising concerns for the future of the web.