Top all-time · #2373
Matthew Butterick
Personal blog · matthewbutterick.com/chronwritingprogramming
Matthew Butterick's personal blog at matthewbutterick.com covers writing and programming. Since 2022, 32 different Hacker News readers have linked it 38 times, most often “Will AI obliterate the rule of law?”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
Typographer and lawyer whose blog covers typography, AI and copyright (including the GitHub Copilot lawsuit), and essays on capitalism and AI. Commenters link it for these essays and for his fonts.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Will AI obliterate the rule of law?6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2023-03-27
- /4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-11-03
- Extinction-Level Capitalism4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2026-06-13
- The Copyrightability of Fonts Revisited3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-12-22
- Does Software Piracy Exist?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-12-22
- Please go away, Tim Berners-Lee (2019)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-14
- The Collapse of Complex Societies2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-06-16
- Big AI to humanity: drop dead2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-09-13
- Domination: A contrarian view of AI risk (2024)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-06-24
- What Copilot means for open source2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-06-25
What Hacker News says?
Hah, funny. I've used Pollen before and think I've had contact with him a few years ago! The blah blah about AI elevating the world is still bs imho. I still disagree with his views ( https://matthewbutterick.com/chron/this-copilot-is-stupid-an... ) and this law suit. I wasn't actually talking about him specifically btw when saying "this sounds like a crypto bro from twitter". The overly enthusiastic AI talk reminde…
Comment linking /chron/this-copilot-is-stupid-and-wants-to-kill-me.html
on “We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot”Submitted Justice Stevens reads the fine print as a story · 272 points
HN discussionLooks like that lawyer guy is not new on hacking stuff: https://matthewbutterick.com/ Not exactly the curriculum of a twitter weirdo.
Comment linking /
on “We've filed a lawsuit against GitHub Copilot”Submitted What we can deduce from a leaked PDF as a story · 251 points
HN discussionJust a thought: I think it would be neat if you could include one of Mathew Butterick’s fonts ( https://matthewbutterick.com/ ), as a fellow lawyer/software developer. I don’t know how practical that is, but it’s a smallish club and they are very pretty fonts.
Comment linking /
on “Show HN: Tritium – The Legal IDE in Rust”Submitted Two Vexing Problems in Functional Programming as a story · 183 points
HN discussionThis is a great framing. I also appreciated this similar idea in Matthew Butterick's blog: > Before too long, we will not delegate decisions to AI systems because they perform better. Rather, we will delegate decisions to AI systems because they can get away with everything that we can’t. You’ve heard of money laundering? This is human-behavior laundering. At last—plausible deniability for everything. [1]…
Comment linking /chron/will-ai-obliterate-the-rule-of-law.html
on “There Is No A.I”Submitted What Copilot means for open source as a story · 107 points
HN discussionThere's a (IMO) great, if a bit long, article making exactly your argument. I found it on HN a few days ago: (lost the HN link, sorry) https://matthewbutterick.com/extinction-level-capitalism.htm...
Comment linking /extinction-level-capitalism.html
on “Hetzner Price Adjustment (June 15th, 2026)”Submitted Big AI to humanity: drop dead as a story · 44 points
HN discussionNice. A Matthew Butterick [0] font [1], and it feels like a Butterick-informed project [2]. [0] https://matthewbutterick.com/ [1] https://mbtype.com/fonts/valkyrie/ [2] https://practicaltypography.com/how-this-book-was-made.html Edit: Oops, I see it is explicitly acknowledged: https://www.onedayyoullfindyourself.com/acknowledgements.htm...
Comment linking /
on “One Day You'll Find Yourself”Submitted The Collapse of Complex Societies as a story · 25 points
HN discussion"AI" changes things by making it even harder for individuals to defend against. Right now, we have FOSS organizations that will help you in lawsuits against companies that don't follow licenses. With "AI" in the picture, companies can launder your code with "plausible" deniability. [1] [1]: https://matthewbutterick.com/chron/will-ai-obliterate-the-ru...
Comment linking /chron/will-ai-obliterate-the-rule-of-law.html
on “We should start to add “ai.txt” as we do for “robots.txt””Submitted Please go away, Tim Berners-Lee (2019) as a story · 13 points
HN discussionHere is a dedicated website from the plaintiffs team. https://githubcopilotlitigation.com/ Interestingly, Matthew Butterick (of Practical Typography fame) is co-counsel on this. Programmer, lawyer and typesetting expert, damn. https://matthewbutterick.com/
Comment linking /
on “GitHub Is Sued, and We May Learn Something About Creative Commons Licensing”Submitted Does Software Piracy Exist? as a story · 8 points
HN discussionSubmitted Layers of Lawyers and Liars as a story · 7 points
HN discussionSubmitted Extinction-Level Capitalism as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Collapse of Complex Societies as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted Big AI to Humanity: Drop Dead as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Does software piracy exist? (2021) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The End of the Beginning as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Chief Justice John Roberts on AI and the Judiciary as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Will AI obliterate the rule of law? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Extinction-Level Capitalism as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Extinction-Level Capitalism as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Domination: A contrarian view of AI risk (2024) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Copyrightability of Fonts Revisited as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted At last, I took Microsoft Word to court [pdf] as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Will AI Obliterate the Rule of Law? as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
