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Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

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Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich Hickey designed Clojure.

I asked Claude if it could design Clojure and it said yes. Maybe people like Hickey just aren't needed anymore.

Ask it to design something that don’t exist maybe. Asking it to design something that already exists is useless.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#82
Although these are valid inquiries, it's incredibly frustrating to live in a time when people that I consider exceptionally bright take hardline stances on issues which are intricately nuanced. Truth is more important than "winning". We do ourselves a disservice by not recognizing that things are not inherently "good" or "bad". Though undesirable interactions may arise within our systems, we must adapt the systems to be resilient to their environment.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

https://theaidigest.org/village/goal/do-random-acts-kindness

I personally blame this on instruction tuning. Base models are in my mind akin to the Solaris Ocean. Wandering thoughts that we aren't really even trying to understand. The tuned models, however, are as if somebody figured out a way to force the Solaris Ocean to do their bidding as the Ocean understands it. From this perspective it is clear that giving everyone barely restricted ability to channel the Ocean thoughts into actions leads to outcomes that we now observe.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#84

At this point I'd split HN into artisian HN and modern HN lol

A fine sentiment, and would probably even be somewhat enforceable, as most AI slop is pretty obvious, but I suspect a lot isn't. You'd have to decide where to draw the line. How much LLM assistance transitions a work from HackerNews into SlopperNews? And how do you tell if the author (or "author") isn't forthcoming?

I'm pretty sure you aren't terribly serious, but I found it interesting enough to give it a little thought.

Edit: I realize now that my assertion "most AI slop is pretty obvious" could be hubris. I'm not actually very confident any more.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#85
At this point they might as well implicate everyone who contributed to computer science as being at least partially responsible, willingly or not, on creating the monster. What were we trying to do this entire time? Automate right? Get to that "answer" sooner? And now the AI of our science fiction stories is almost here.

Let's be real. The grey beards all knew this was going to happen. They just didnt think it would happen in their lifetime. And so they willingly continued, improving bits of the machine, because when it awoke they thought it would be someone else's problem.

But it's not. It's their problem now too.

And so it is.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#86
post #17
post #6

I have seen similar critiques applied against digital tech in general. Don't get me wrong, I continue to use plain Emacs to do dev, but this critique feels a bit rich... Technological change changes lots of things. The verdict is still out on LLMs, much as it was out for so much of today's technology during its infancy.

AI has an image problem around how it takes advantage of other people's work, without credit or compensation. This trend of saccharine "thank you" notes to famous, influential developers (earlier Rob Pike, now Rich Hickey) signed by the models seems like a really glib attempt at fixing that problem. "Look, look! We're giving credit, and we're so cute about how we're doing it!" It's entirely natural for people to reac…

Every time I try to have this conversation with anyone I become very aware that most developers have never spent a single microsecond on thinking about licenses or rights when it comes to software.

To me when it's very obviously infuriating that a creator can release something awesome for free, with just a small requirement of copying the license attribution to the output, and then the consumers of it cannot even follow that small request. It should be simple: if you can't follow that then don't use it and don't ingest it and output derivatives of it.

Yet having this discussion with nearly anyone I'm usually met with "what? license? it's OSS. What do you mean I need to do things in order to use it, are you sure?". Tons of people using MIT and distributing binaries but have never copied the license to the output as required. They are simply and blissfully unaware that there is this largely-unenforced requirement that authors care deeply about and LLMs violate en masse. Without understanding this, they think the authors are deranged.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#87
post #75

If anyone else is as puzzled as me I think i've cracked it: rich hickey and rob pike are language owners. That's a real specific job, and it's one that requires unbridled arrogance. Pretty sure that's what we're seeing here. Why else does their anger seem so poorly thought out.. so surprised? So it's one of those tragic flaw things. So let me piss them off by saying: thanks! thanks but your immense focus has forced y…

How is this poorly thought out?

They released software with a requirement to use it (license, attribution) and it's been immensely helpful to people, yet these tools come and use it without even following the simple requirements. Yes they care about this thing more than others, but I don't think that it's poorly thought out.

Let's say you have a newborn so you can't easily answer the door for Halloween. So you put out a bowl of candy with a sign that says "take 2 per person, please". Every year the kids come by and take 2. They are happy, you are happy, you gave them candy and they accepted it under the conditions you desire to share it under. Then one year let's say someone makes a robot that scurries from door to door picking up the entire bowl and dumping it into a container then leaving. You will be pissed. If it just took 2 you probably won't even care, but the fact it takes the whole thing is a violation of the conditions you agreed to put the candy out under. The reasonable thing to do would be for it to either take 2 or none, but it doesn't care. I don't think this is a puzzle to understand why that violation of the agreement of use would make someone mad.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#88
post #84

At this point I'd split HN into artisian HN and modern HN lol

A fine sentiment, and would probably even be somewhat enforceable, as most AI slop is pretty obvious, but I suspect a lot isn't. You'd have to decide where to draw the line. How much LLM assistance transitions a work from HackerNews into SlopperNews? And how do you tell if the author (or "author") isn't forthcoming? I'm pretty sure you aren't terribly serious, but I found it interesting enough to give it a little tho…

It's not about enforcement per se, I just want my old internet back, reading some obscure blogs, pre AI, pre influencers, pre 'content-creators'. There're still small safe spaces. bb forums and the likes.

I know, I know - old men yells at clouds.jpg

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#89
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI has an image problem around how it takes advantage of other people's work, without credit or compensation. This trend of saccharine "thank you" notes to famous, influential developers (earlier Rob Pike, now Rich Hickey) signed by the models seems like a really glib attempt at fixing that problem. "Look, look! We're giving credit, and we're so cute about how we're doing it!" It's entirely natural for people to reac…

Every time I try to have this conversation with anyone I become very aware that most developers have never spent a single microsecond on thinking about licenses or rights when it comes to software. To me when it's very obviously infuriating that a creator can release something awesome for free, with just a small requirement of copying the license attribution to the output, and then the consumers of it cannot even fol…

Small? GPLv3 is ~5644 words, and not particularly long for a license.

Re: Rich Hickey: Thanks AI

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generative AI is used to defraud people, to propagandize them, to steal their intellectual property and livelihoods, to systematically deny their health insurance claims, to dangerously misinform them (e.g. illegitimate legal advice or hallucinated mushroom identification ebooks), to drive people to mental health breakdowns via "ai psychosis" and much more. The harm is real and material, and right now is causing unem…

Internet is used to defraud people, to propagandize them, to steal their intellectual property and livelihoods, to systematically deny their health insurance claims, to dangerously misinform them (e.g. illegitimate legal advice or hallucinated mushroom identification ebooks), to drive people to mental health breakdowns via "internet psychosis" and much more. The harm is real and material, and right now is causing une…

Writing is used to defraud people, to propagandize them, to steal their intellectual property and livelihoods, to systematically deny their health insurance claims, to dangerously misinform them (e.g. illegitimate legal advice or hallucinated mushroom identification ebooks), to drive people to mental health breakdowns via "internet psychosis" and much more. The harm is real and material, and right now is causing unemployment, physical harm, imprisonment, and in some cases death...
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