This list isn't exhaustive. I only include the ones I found genuinely cool or worth revisiting.
How to Win a Best Paper Award
Nicholas Carlini
Personal Blog • March 2026
An opinionated take on picking problems with taste, executing meticulously, and writing research that actually matters.
You Are NOT Dumb, You Just Lack the Prerequisites
Lelouch
lelouch.dev • 2025
A reassuring reminder that feeling lost usually means missing prerequisites, not lacking ability.
Man-Computer Symbiosis
J.C.R. Licklider
IRE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics • March 1960
Licklider's seminal paper envisioning humans and computers working together in intimate partnership.
How To Become A Mechanistic Interpretability Researcher
Neel Nanda
AI Alignment Forum • 2023
A comprehensive roadmap for breaking into mechanistic interpretability research.
You and Your Research
Richard W. Hamming
Bell Communications Research • 1986
Hamming's legendary talk on what it takes to do Nobel-level work.
Notes on the Industry Job Search
Alisa Liu
Personal Blog • June 2026
Detailed notes and reflections on navigating the industry job search.
ML Job Interviews: The Ultimate Guide
Silvia Sapora
Personal Blog • June 2026
A thorough guide to preparing for machine learning job interviews.
An Unofficial Guide to Prepare for a Research Position Application
Stefania Druga, Luke Darlow, Llion Jones
Sakana AI • 2025
Practical advice on preparing for research position applications.
Six Things I Learned Watching a Robotics Startup Die from the Inside
Rui Xu
Personal Blog • 2025
Hard-won lessons from the inside of a failing robotics startup.
Advice for Success
Andrej Karpathy
Stanford CS • September 2016
Karpathy's guide on academic success and doing great work.
What YJ Thinks About Life
Yew Jin Lim
Substack •
A collection of essays on life, career, and personal growth.
Hacker Laws
Dave Kerr
hacker-laws.com • 2025
Laws, theories, principles, and patterns that developers will find useful.
The Bitter Lesson
Rich Sutton
University of Alberta • March 2019
Sutton's influential essay arguing that leveraging computation always wins over leveraging human knowledge.