Where AI Value Lands

Data folder — README

3 min read

wiki/data/ — the citable-evidence layer

This folder holds the small, citable units of evidence referenced across the wiki: statistics, figures, tables, charts, images.

Concept pages argue. Source pages summarize whole documents. Data pages hold the individual numbers, charts, and images that the arguments rest on — each one self-contained, sourced, and back-linked to the concepts that use it.

What lives here

Each data point gets its own short markdown file:

  • Statistics — a single number or ratio with source, year, and method (e.g. scaling-gap-74-16.md, task-based-tfp-ceiling.md).
  • Tables — small decomposition tables (e.g. ai-task-exposure-decomposition.md).
  • Images / figures — a markdown file that embeds an image and describes it. The image file (.jpg, .png, .svg) lives in this same folder, next to the markdown that describes it. The markdown is the citable unit; the image alone is not.

Rule: every image in data/ must have a sibling markdown that describes it, sources it, and links it into the wiki. An orphan image file is a /lint violation.

File conventions

  • Slug: lowercase, hyphen-separated, descriptive. Prefer cursor-50b-valuation.md over cursor1.md.
  • One data point per file. Three related numbers from the same source go in three files (with cross-links) unless they form an irreducible table.
  • Frontmatter (required): 
    ---
title: Short human title
type: statistic | table | figure | image
source-primary: Who actually measured / published it
source-via: Which wiki source page surfaces it (a [[source-page]] slug)
year: 2024
related: [concept-slug, concept-slug]
last-updated: YYYY-MM-DD
---
  • Body sections (in this order):
    1. The data — the number, chart, table, or ![[image.png]] embed, with one-line caption.
    2. Source — full citation, primary attribution, and the wiki source page it was ingested through.
    3. What it shows — 1–3 sentences of plain-language interpretation.
    4. How to cite — a one-line format the author can paste into the paper.
    5. Connections — `[[wikilinks]]` to concept/hypothesis pages, each annotated with how the data is used there.

The forward → reverse rule still applies

If data/X.md links to 04_concepts/Y.md, then Y.md must reference [[X]] back. Same as everywhere else in the wiki.

How data pages are used

  • In the paper. Drop a footnote pointing to the data page; the data page is the canonical entry that owns the citation.
  • In /ask. When a question touches a number, the answer cites the data page (not the source page), so the chain stays grindable.
  • In /visualize. Lecture pages can pull figures/tables directly from data/.
  • In /lint. Checks that every quantitative claim in a concept page resolves to a data page.

What does not live here

  • Long argumentative summaries → those are 05_sources/.
  • Theoretical framings or hypotheses → 02_hypothesis/ and 04_concepts/.
  • Raw, unprocessed source files (PDFs, screenshots) → those stay in raw/.

Naming nudges

Use a noun-first slug that survives renaming the underlying source:

  • ✅ scaling-gap-74-16.md, hyperscaler-capex-trajectory.md
  • ❌ wef-figure-3.md, acemoglu-table-2.md

Numbers and labels survive; document page references rot.

Graph View