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The MANIACBook

by Benjamin Labatut

Who uses, recommends or left The MANIAC, in their own words: each a verbatim quote with a link to where it was said.

2 people

Jasmine Sun
Writer and former Substack product manager; publishes essays on technology, culture and China at jasmi.news.
recommended

Ooh, um so I think the first one is really relevant to this conversation, which is uh Ben Yemin Labatut's The Maniac, um which includes a sort of lightly fictionalized biography of John von Neumann, the story of AlphaGo. I think it's very much a sort of halfway novel, halfway non-fiction book about how intelligence is incredibly awe-inspiring and something worth respecting and at the same time can lead people to some very dark realities.

Answering The Ezra Klein Show's closing question, three books to recommend, in “The A.I. Revolt Is Here” (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-jasmine-sun.html). Quoted from the episode's YouTube auto-captions.

2026-08-04·youtube.com ↗

Yuval Noah Harari
recommended

Uh so one book about AI that I would recommend to read is Benjamin Labatut the maniac which is a sort of fictionalist biography of John Fonand but also a very imaginative and powerful exploration of the origins of the AI revolution and of the potential consequences of it. Um another recommendation is basically any book by France Devalo.

Answering The Ezra Klein Show's closing question, three books to recommend, in “Yuval Noah Harari on Donald Trump’s Core Delusion” (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/26/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-yuval-noah-harari.html). Quoted from the episode's YouTube auto-captions.

2026-05-26·youtube.com ↗

Every entry is a verbatim quote and a link to the public post it came from. Nothing is paraphrased. If it is not on record somewhere public, it is not here.

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