Hi ! The "artistic direction" is a bit original, but that's your thing, and you're free to present it anyway you want, of course !
I think the biggest problem people / I had when reading the list was the "based on a rumoured list of papers that Ilya Sutskever gave to John Carmack."
Where did you get the "rumoured list" from ? Why should a reader trust the rumours ? That seems to be a pretty big appeal to authority, and it's okay if it's only "word of mouth" (as most papers seems legit), but it's really weird not to give a source, or a backstory, or references, etc...
I think the biggest problem people / I had when reading the list was the "based on a rumoured list of papers that Ilya Sutskever gave to John Carmack."
Where did you get the "rumoured list" from ? Why should a reader trust the rumours ? That seems to be a pretty big appeal to authority, and it's okay if it's only "word of mouth" (as most papers seems legit), but it's really weird not to give a source, or a backstory, or references, etc...
Especially since you claim to only have 27 ;)