Gwern.net — Linear Sitemap

• Master Essay Index
• Expanded Essay Index
• Full /doc/ Tag Tree
• Blog Post Index
• Changelog (What's New)
• Newsletter Archive
• Newest Links & Annotations
• About Gwern
• Design of This Website
• Design Graveyard (Lessons Learned)
• Website Traffic Statistics
• Towards Better RSS Feeds
• 2025 Inkhaven Writing Interview
• Interview on Risktaking & Self-Experiment

Major Essays

• The Scaling Hypothesis landmark
• Scaling Hypothesis Revisited: GPT-3's 2nd Anniversary
• Machine Learning Scaling (note/bibliography)
• Technology Forecasting: The Garden of Forking Paths
• Slowing Moore's Law: How It Could Happen

Blog Posts

• Scaling 'Diminishing Returns'
• Hardware Hedging Scaling Risks
• AI Cannibalism Can Be Good
• ML Scaling Subreddit
• The State of Chinese AI

Reference Directories

• /doc/ai/scaling/
• /doc/ai/scaling/emergence/
• /doc/ai/scaling/emergence/grokking/
• /doc/ai/scaling/hardware/
• /doc/ai/scaling/economics/
• /doc/ai/scaling/mixture-of-experts/

Major Essays

• GPT-3 Creative Fiction landmark
• GPT-3 Creative Nonfiction
• GPT-2 Neural Network Poetry
• GPT-2 Folk Music (ABC notation)
• GPT-2 Preference Learning for Music
• CYOA AI Dungeons
• Claude-2: 'Bats With Baby Faces'
• Some 2025 LLM System Prompts
• Train Bayesian LLMs by Reversing Stan
• Writing Non-Biblical Sentences
• Towards Benchmarking LLM Diversity & Creativity

Blog Posts

• Towards Better LLM Creative Writing
• LLMs Can Be Faster Than You Think
• LLM Acceptable-Use Policy
• Why Do Writers Still Underestimate LLMs?
• GPT-3 Semantic Derealization
• Virtual Comments: LLM Idea
• Adding Bits Beats AI Slop
• Crowdsourcing The Best GPT-2-1.5b Poetry
• Regexps Used to Be AI
• You Could've Invented Transformers

Reference Directories

• /doc/ai/nn/transformer/gpt/
• GPT-2 · GPT-3 · GPT-4 · GPT-4.5 · GPT-5
• Claude · Anthropic · DeepSeek
• Codex · LaMDA · PaLM · Whisper · Jukebox
• LLM Calibration · Instruction Tuning · Inner Monologue

• Making Anime Faces with StyleGAN landmark
• GANs Didn't Fail, They Were Abandoned
• BigGAN Anime Experiments
• Anime Neural Net Graveyard
• Anime Crop Datasets: Faces, Figures & Hands
• Danbooru2021 Anime Dataset
• Dropcap Generation With AI
• ThisWaifuDoesNotExist.net
• Midjourney Personalization Flaws

Reference Directories

• GANs · StyleGAN · BigGAN
• Diffusion Models · Midjourney · Imagen
• DALL-E: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4o
• Anime AI · Danbooru AI

• AI Fiction directory
• AI Poetry directory
• AI Music directory
• AI Video directory · Analysis · Generation
• Text Style Transfer

• Why Tool AIs Want to Be Agent AIs landmark
• Complexity Is No Bar to AGI
• The Existential Risk of Math Errors
• Evolution as Backstop for Reinforcement Learning
• It Looks Like You're Trying to Take Over the World (Clippy) fiction
• Hyperbolic Time Chambers & AI
• Copyright & AI
• Simulation Inferences
• 'Winning' AI Arms Races: Then What?
• What Is an 'AI Warning Shot'?
• Is OpenAI OK?
• The Meta-LW Doomsday Argument
• Area Man Angry AI Not Silver Bullet

• Absolute Unit NNs: Regression-Based MLPs
• The Neural Net Tank Urban Legend landmark
• RNN Metadata for Mimicking Author Style

Reference Directories

• Neural Networks
• Transformers · Attention · CLIP · AlphaFold · T5
• CNN · RNN · MLP · VAE
• Adversarial Examples · Sparsity/Pruning/Distillation
• Sampling · Tokenization · Retrieval · Dynamic Evaluation

• RL Directory
• AlphaGo · MuZero · AlphaStar · OpenAI Five
• Preference Learning · Robotics · RL Safety
• Multi-Agent · Offline RL · Meta-Learning
• Visualizing Active Learning Sample-Efficiency

Replication Crisis & Research Quality

• The Replication Crisis: Flaws in Mainstream Science
• How Should We Critique Research?
• Fake Journal Club: Teaching Critical Reading
• Leprechaun Hunting & Citogenesis
• Does Mouse Utopia Exist?
• Hydrocephalus and Intelligence: The Hollow Men

Correlation, Causation & Statistical Theory

• Why Correlation Usually ≠ Causation
• How Often Does Correlation = Causality?
• Everything Is Correlated
• Statistical Notes
• Littlewood's Law & The Global Media
• Origin of 'Littlewood's Law of Miracles'

Reference Directories

• Statistics · Causality · Bayes · Decision Theory
• Meta-Analysis · Prediction · Peer Review

Intelligence (IQ)

• The IQ Halo Effect
• Genius Revisited Revisited (Hunter College)
• Iodine and Adult IQ Meta-analysis
• How Complex Are Individual Differences?

Cognitive Training & Learning

• Spaced Repetition for Efficient Learning landmark
• Anti-Spaced Repetition for Serendipity
• Dual n-Back FAQ
• Dual n-Back Meta-Analysis
• Conscientiousness & Online Education

Behavioral Psychology & Decision-Making

• Are Sunk Costs Fallacies?
• The Explore-Exploit Dilemma in Media Consumption
• What Is The Collecting Mindset?
• Ordinary Incompetence
• What Is The Morning Writing Effect?

Miscellaneous

• Progress In Beauty
• The Melancholy of Subculture Society
• Culture Is Not About Esthetics
• Education Is Not About Learning

Reference Directories

• Psychology · IQ · Spaced Repetition

Overviews

• Nootropics (comprehensive survey) landmark
• The Algernon Argument

Individual Substances

• Modafinil
• Modafinil Community Survey (2015)
• Nicotine
• Melatonin
• Creatine Cognition Meta-analysis
• LSD Microdosing RCT
• Bacopa Quasi-Experiment
• Magnesium Self-Experiments
• 2013 LLLT Self-Experiment
• 2014 Spirulina Randomized Self-Experiment
• Lithium in Ground-Water and Well-Being

Reference Directories

• Nootropics · Psychedelics · Modafinil · Nicotine · Melatonin · Marijuana

• Zeo Sleep Self-Experiments (overview)
• ZMA Sleep Experiment
• CO₂/Ventilation Sleep Experiment
• Caffeine Wakeup Experiment
• Potassium Sleep Experiments
• Redshift Sleep Experiment
• Vitamin D Sleep Experiments
• Lunar Circadian Rhythms

• Diet Variance: Soylent Study
• Weather and My Productivity
• Self-Blinded Mineral Water Taste Test
• Treadmill Desk Observations
• Bitter Melon for Blood Glucose
• 2013 Lewis Meditation Results
• Acne: A Good Quantified Self Topic
• Wooden Pillow
• Life Extension Cost-Benefits

• Embryo Selection For Intelligence landmark
• Embryo Editing for Intelligence
• Dog Cloning For Special Forces
• Oh Deer: Could Deer Evolve to Avoid Cars?
• The Morality of Sperm Donation
• Genetics in My Little Pony
• Genetics in Herbert's Dune

Reference Directories

• Genetics · Heritability · Gene Editing · Cloning · Selection

• Longevity directory
• GLP Agonists: Semaglutide · Tirzepatide · Retatrutide
• Metformin · Senolytics · Fasting · Aspirin

• Psychiatry directory
• ADHD · Depression · Anxiety
• Bipolar · Autism · Schizophrenia
• Alzheimer's · Anorexia · Alcoholism
• Lithium · Meditation

Essays

• Surprisingly Turing-Complete
• Archiving URLs
• Internet Search Tips
• Choosing Software
• Resilient Haskell Software
• Predicting Google Closures
• Google Alerts Over Time
• Gwtar: Static Efficient Single-File HTML
• Utext: Rich Unicode Documents
• The sort --key Trick
• Unsorting Lists for Diversity
• How Many Computers Are In Your Computer?
• Computers Are Fast
• Internet WiFi Improvement
• Hacking Smartphone ESP Apps
• 'Tools For Thought' Failure
• Proposal: Hybridizing Forums/Wikis
• Towards a Better Hutter Prize

Reference Directories

• Computer Science
• Algorithms · Sorting · Information Theory
• Haskell · Python · R · Lisp · JavaScript
• Link Rot · Security · Hardware

• Bitcoin Is Worse Is Better landmark
• Silk Road 1: Theory & Practice landmark
• Darknet Market Archives (2013–2015)
• Darknet Market Arrests: 2011–2015
• Darknet Market Mortality Risks
• Time-Lock Crypto / Self-Decrypting Files
• Easy Cryptographic Timestamping
• CO₂ Coin: Carbon Blockchain

Reference Directories

• Bitcoin · Darknet Markets · Cryptography
• Silk Road · Agora · AlphaBay · Hydra

• Laws of Tech: Commoditize Your Complement landmark
• Timing Technology: Lessons From The Media Lab
• My Ordinary Life: Improvements Since the 1990s
• Scientific Stagnation
• Prediction Markets
• Against Copyright
• Self-funding Harberger Copyright Tax
• Startup Ideas
• Console Insurance Is A Ripoff
• Reasons of State: Why Didn't Denmark Sell Greenland?
• Girl Scouts & Good Corporate Governance
• Why So Few Matt Levines?
• Long Bets's Design Problems
• Technology Holy Wars Are Coordination Problems

Reference Directories

• Economics · Automation · Copyright · Mechanism Design

• The Narrowing Circle
• An Abortion Dialogue
• Immoral Books
• Justifications
• Charity Is Not about Helping
• Ontological Pantheism
• On Disrespect
• Notes on Pascal's Mugging
• Solving Pascal's Mugging with Dynamic Programming
• One Man's Modus Ponens...
• Isomorphisms & Meaning
• Impossibility of Retrocognition
• Against the Miletians and the One True Element
• The Presocratic's Logical Path to Atomism
• Hacker Mindset: Seeing Through / Unseeing
• On Powerful Natural Languages
• Distinguishing Sources of Religion

Reference Directories

• Philosophy · Ethics · Epistemology · Logic

• Terrorism Is Not About Terror
• Terrorism Is Not Effective
• Colder Wars In Space
• Newton's System of the World and Comets
• Review: The Cultural Revolution (Dikotter)
• McNamara's Folly
• ARPA and SCI: Surfing AI
• Internet Community Design

Wikipedia

• In Defense of Inclusionism
• Wikipedia & Knol
• Wikipedia and YouTube
• Wikipedia and Dark Side Editing
• Wikipedia Resume

Reference Directories

• History · Sociology · Crime · Politics

• Cultural Drift: Cleaning Methods
• Video Games as Art
• Rock-Paper-Scissors as Game Mechanic
• The Most 'Abandoned' Books on GoodReads
• On Development Hell
• Fashion Cycles
• You Should Write More Online
• You Can't Countersignal Online Writing
• Why To Not Write A Book
• First, Make Me Care (writing advice)

Reference Directories

• Culture · Design · Typography

• 'Story Of Your Life' Is Not A Time-Travel Story
• Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy landmark
• Death Note's Ending
• Who Wrote The Death Note Script?
• R. Scott Bakker's The Second Apocalypse
• Timecrimes: Time Travel In Hell
• Interpreting 'Suzanne Delage' as Dracula
• 'Scanners Live in Vain' as Realistic SF
• The 'Screwfly Solution' Solution: Bi-Sexuality
• The Tragedy of Grand Admiral Thrawn
• Borges's Tlon: Fascist Idealism
• On First Looking Into Tolkien's Tower
• Wolfe's 'Fat Magician': Marx Brother?
• Marvel: Humanizing Mythology

Reference Directories

• Literary Criticism · Science Fiction · Fantasy · Borges · Gene Wolfe

Anime Essays

• Why Anime?
• Why is Western Animation Ugly?
• How OVAs Worked
• The Melancholy of Kyon
• Hafu Gender Ratios in Anime
• Aria's Past, Present, and Future
• Parody in Full Metal Panic!
• Komm Susser Tod
• Notes on Evangelion
• Evangelion Source Anthology
• Collected Anime Reviews (34+ titles)

Japanese Culture

• Japan · Japanese Poetry · Japanese Art

Reference Directories

• Anime · Evangelion

• It Looks Like You're Trying To Take Over The World landmark
• Silver Bird Above San Francisco
• October The First Is Too Late
• The Gift Of The Amygdali (Batman)
• The Ones Who Walk Towards Acre
• Three Missing Cities
• The Erl King
• Men Of Iron
• Gilles Goullet, Author of the Blindsight
• How The Panther Got Black
• The Palace Of Wonders
• Dinosaur Comics Comics
• Insert, Abort, Retry?
• Two Simple Happenings
• Final Gifts
• The Last Muezzin
• The Case of PenPen
• A Human Story
• Before Dawn
• The Jaguars of God
• The Buddha's Wheel
• Cloud Nine
• Spoilage
• What Begets the End
• The Snowbanks of Time
• The Safecracker of Hearts
• The Diamond Earrings
• Second Life Sentences
• Epigrams & Humor

Original Poems

• Miscellaneous Poems
• Brave Poem
• Dying Outside
• Poems on the Theme of Genshiken
• Hybrid Rainbow
• The Mulberry Tree

AI-Collaborative

• Apollonian #1: The Counted & the Crowned
• Apollonian #2: A Poet Teaches AIs Poetry
• Your Hands And Mine
• Tilakkhana: The 3 Scars of Existence
• The Fourth Truth Of Pain
• A Christmas Protestation
• Bell, Crow, Moon: 11 Variations

• Collected Book Reviews
• Collected Movie Reviews
• Collected Opera Reviews
• Collected Anime Reviews
• Tea Reviews
• Mead Reviews
• Cat Psychology & Domestication
• Origins of Innovation: Bakewell & Breeding
• The Quantum Thief Trilogy
• I Remember Lemuria!
• Umineko no Naku Koro Ni
• MLP: Immanetizing The Equestrian
• The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
• The Last Unicorn
• Space Battleship Yamato
• Perfume Reviews
• Review: The Birth of Sake (2015)

• Design of This Website
• Sidenotes in Web Design
• A/B Testing CSS & HTML
• Poetry HTML Typesetting
• Who Buys Fonts?
• On Subscripting Citations
• Use Rarer Greek Variables
• Website Colors: Red vs Blue
• Rubrication Design Examples
• InvertOrNot.com

Reference Directories

• Design · Typography · Dropcaps · Sidenotes

Cats

• Catnip Immunity and Alternatives
• Catnip Surveys
• Cat directory

Other Topics

• Research Ideas (open project proposals)
• Anencephaly Infant Organ Donation Survey
• The 3 Grenades and 4 Noble Truths
• On Stress
• Life Contracts
• Barratry
• Why Is Microwaving Bad? (tea)
• Human Cannibalism Alignment Chart
• Hacking Pinball High Scores
• Tracking Phishing Bots Via Locations

Reference Directories

• Existential Risk · Cryonics · Transhumanism · Long Now
• Dogs · Exercise · Food · Music · Math

• ai/
• algernon/
• anime/
• biology/
• bitcoin/
• borges/
• cat/
• co2/
• creatine/
• crime/
• cryonics/
• cs/
• culture/
• darknet-market/
• dataset/
• design/
• dog/
• dual-n-back/
• economics/
• exercise/
• existential-risk/
• fiction/
• food/
• genetics/
• history/
• insight-porn/
• interview/
• iodine/
• iq/
• japan/
• law/
• lesswrong-survey/
• long-now/
• longevity/
• marijuana/
• math/
• melatonin/
• meta/
• modafinil/
• music/
• newest/
• newsletter/
• nicotine/
• nootropic/
• personal/
• philosophy/
• politics/
• psychedelic/
• psychiatry/
• psychology/
• radiance/
• reinforcement-learning/
• rotten.com/
• science/
• sociology/
• statistics/
• survey/
• tea/
• technology/
• touhou/
• traffic/
• transhumanism/
• tutorial/
• vitamin-d/
• wikipedia/
• zeo/