Top all-time · #8894
Benjamin Riley
Personal blog · buildcognitiveresonance.substack.comaiculture
Benjamin Riley writes Cognitive Resonance, a personal blog at buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com about ai and culture. Since 2024, 9 different Hacker News readers have linked it 9 times, most often “My So-Called Alpha School”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-02, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (2) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link this Benjamin Riley Substack in discussions of Alpha School and AI-driven tutoring, where it is cited as a source on the school's model. The comments do not assess the writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 2 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Building human knowledge to halt AI hype.
Most-linked posts?
- My So-Called Alpha School3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2026-09-08
What Hacker News says?
Alpha school struggles with the kids who are a bit slow. If you’re the sort of kid who gets everything right first go then you join the “rocket ship” and spend 2hrs a day with AI then play for the rest of the day. You would do well in any school. If you don’t get it right quickly then you join the “Pirate Ship” and have to spend all day grinding and obeying AI while your friends play. It seems pretty terrible. https…
Comment linking /p/fourth-report-former-alpha-school
on “Tutoring company tells parents to save their money and 'use AI instead'”Submitted EnronAI as a story · 18 points
HN discussionI’m very conceptually interested in AI assisted individual learning; I’ve managed to get into a lot of topics that I would have had a hard time approaching without an LLM helping. I really like having AI rephrase concepts usually visualizations and analogies that resonate with me personally. That said, I think there is a lot of sketchiness around Alpha Schools in particular: https://buildcognitiveresonance.substack.…
Comment linking /p/special-report-my-so-called-alpha
on “Tutoring company tells parents to save their money and 'use AI instead'”Submitted My So-Called Alpha School as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted What is it like to be a student in Alpha School's high school boot camp? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted America in Distress as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted AI Is Breakin' the Law as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Don't Stop Believin' in OpenAI as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Who and What Comprise AI Skepticism? as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
