Comment by CrociDB
10 hours ago
This looks AI Slop. At first the style of the site and the cover of the book were a bit suspicious, but then digging a bit further:
- Domain was registered in February this year: https://www.whois.com/whois/vivianvoss.net
- Web archive has only a couple snapshots before this year, and it seemed to belong to an "Elite Escort": https://web.archive.org/web/20160515000000*/https://vivianvo...
- All his other domains are recently registered too, the oldest one `byvoss.tech` is from May 2025.
- GitHub has way too little projects and contributions for someone with such experience. The first project dates on the same day as the domain registration: https://github.com/VivianVossNet?tab=repositories
- As other people mentioned, too many blog posts lately (almost one a day), and a very weird writing style. Which doesn't seem at all that's because it's English as a second language. It's just plainly vague and disconnected sentences.
> - Web archive has only a couple snapshots before this year, and it seemed to belong to an "Elite Escort": https://web.archive.org/web/20160515000000*/https://vivianvo...
Other red flags aside, we can't actually hold the actions of a previous domain owner a decade ago against the current owner
LinkedIn profile picture is oddly smooth and has the OpenAI signature yellow hue, although it could just be an odd touch-up.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vvoss/
upon further review, this is a complete LLM-driven attempt at trying to be AI Banksy
aside from the complete lack of background like he's Jobriath except without talent, it isn't hard to find festering boils like the UN link (https://www.un.org/en/observances/book-and-copyright-day) being a sham coming from Russia
This person appeared out of nowhere 6 months ago and started posting on linkedin. With 6k followers and so much experience I would expect a couple of recommendations. Also gitlab and Github account appeared around the same time... Maybe it's just my paranoia in the AI slop age.
Things do seem a little off. If you check both the website and the LinkedIn you'll notice a strange motif of AI-generated women with cat ear headphones.
I want to believe that Vivian made a bootcamp and turned herself from an elite business trained elite scort [0] into an elite greybeard, empowering her former "nerd" and tomboy spirit [0]
[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20150223124354/http://www.vivian...
Have you considered that "very weird writing style" might be due to the fact that a German person is writing in English?
One post a day over the last short period of time does not seem unusual for someone who is suddenly interested in a least a part-time career as an author.
Your random online persona assassination aside, I am curious about the book. The Devil Book kept me occupied for years when I was in university; I'd like to see what I've missed since then.
I'm waiting on my physical copy, but, yes the writing style from a native German can be odd at times (the ex was german).
The poster is trying to get karma being "contrairian".
I'm not sure I'd put it at full slop, but the book is clearly AI assisted. You can view samples on retailer websites, and it features 'interjections' from an AI avatar. Further, in the opening pages, the author feels it pertinent to point out that every fact in the book is verified. Not my cup of tea.
Thanks for pointing out. So close to buying it. Would appreciate more disclosure regarding the use of hostile technology.
What makes the technology (apparently the use of LLMs) hostile? Asking unironically; I try to understand fellow humans better.
Why would you listen to some fool’s baseless speculation?
I did not see any based counterargument that addresses my concern.
Counterpoint: most AI slop authors have multiple books/posts on random subjects. This is their only book on Amazon and their posts sound like draft chapters. Could this just be new author with an unconventional writing style and a disciplined daily schedule?
I'll look into this a bit. But...
"Github has way too little projects"... I had PRs against stinkpad wireless drivers in 1999/2000 time frame - FreeBSD specific. Do I expect those to be around? No.
Do I think 20+ years of working for commercial companies means I have a splendid GH resume - absolutely not.
Using your logic for HN, 140 karma, ignore.
VV has been in the community awhile (I'm not active, but watch). AI slop isn't a thing, trolling for top of HN is.
“The community” - which community? Where? This is a brand new website, there’s next to no online presence for the name (all seemingly unrelated).
It reads like using LLMs to fake some credibility