The "how" problem is one of the most aggravating things to me with this bubble.

Since when do venture capitalists care how engineers solve problems? Since when does management? Are they going to start caring about what color our cats are too?

This is a classical failing because, partially due to their skill mix, but also majorly because of their limited vantage point and specialization, these personnel are NOT SUITED for doing due diligence!

But Jonathan, you may protest: if they cannot discern methods, isn't this how we get fraud, like with the case with Delve?

I think that is always a risk, but it shows what the real role for people who are gatekeepers. They need to take verification seriously. Not in the sense of formal verification, but to take the position of diverse customers and make sure (as tradition) the use case makes sense and isn't going to sink the boat, and (as heterodox) make sure that results, when socialized into the community broadly, holds up to basic scrutiny.

Peer review is just the starting hurdle, and in an ideal world, we would be moving towards more formal methods. It's stupid that well capitalized organizations break down at that first hurdle.

quick STS 2 thoughts:

I have a deep personal relationship with my Osty.

I don't understand why the Crabby Rathbun, matplotlib thing is a story.

There is zero proof to the premise that the issue or blog post is synthetic, besides people's read of the work and it's "tells" of LLM authorship.

We have no idea what operations came from the GitHub account. We neither know its runtime nor input and output. This is not resolvable alone by open source, nor by forensic logs. It's turtles all the way down.

Likewise, there are troubling implications if we do not hold Rathbun's author liable for any of its actions (not that any one of them are crimes or even faux pas).

I do not understand the breathless attitude of tech journalists to this story. Can we please be skeptical of claims, for just one moment?

Forgot what it's like joining a brand new platform.

It's like going to a new school. New threads, new faces, collective nervous excitement.

Let's make the most of it.