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Comment by boxomcfoxo | Hacker News Reader

Nope. It was actually written entirely by Claude. https://boxobarks.leaflet.pub/3mj42airv3s2o#fingerprints-of-...

The framing of the essay around learning through "grunt work" is not deep, it's simply that this specific phrase appeared in two of the sources. Anything that looks like insight is plagiarised directly from the sources in some fashion. I've covered in my evidence the pivot phrases where direct summaries of the essay incorrectly appear to transition to the author's own ideas, but there are parts right through the essay that come from the sources. No deep thinking by the prompter required.

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Thanks for writing that up. You convinced me that there was more Claude here than I'd thought, but I didn't see evidence that the author hadn't edited and supplemented, which is what I was suggesting. In fact, your last observation about correcting an erroneous date makes my point, not yours: Claude made a mistake, and the (human) author fixed it, thus improving the essay.

I certainly agree that the author should disclose the use of an AI, how much is human vs silicon, and clarify which ideas are his own and which are not. I've written to him to ask about that.

The author replied quickly and described his use of AI as very limited and just for grammar and wording. I believe him, based both on the text of the article itself and what he told me.

Well, I don't believe him. It is Claude all the way through. There are more markers than just those. I covered some in my more comprehensive review of it, but tbf that one is a bit of a mess.

I don't see how my point about the erroneous date makes your point. He POSTED IT with that date, and only changed it AFTER someone pointed it out, then BLOCKED them.

If he did write it by hand though, that means he is admitting to plagiarising the sources, and also to framing that makes absolutely no sense, like saying Schwartz didn't say something that he literally did say. So, great job I guess!

I fully believe that he used only a general prompt, and anything in the essay that seems specific, Claude has mined from the sources. I am going to try to reverse engineer the prompt.

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