The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here? • Hacker News Board

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#271

Post by brotchie » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 5:35 PM UTC

abricq wrote: post #70

> ML assistance reduces our performance and persistence, and denies us both the muscle memory and deep theory-building that comes with working through a task by hand: the cultivation of what James C. Scott would call Imagine being starting university now... I can't imagine to have learned what I did at engineering school if it wasn't for all the time lost on projects, on errors. And I can't really think that I would…

Yeah, I think about this a lot.

Those days of grinding on some grad school maths homework until insight.

Figuring out how to configure and recompile the Linux kernel to get a sound card driver working, hitting roadblocks, eventually succeeding.

Without AI on a gnarly problem: grind grind grind, try different thing, some things work, some things don't, step back, try another approach, hit a wall, try again.

This effort is a feature, not a bug, it's how you experientially acquire skills and understanding. e.g. Linux kernel: learnt about Makefiles, learnt about GCC flags, improved shell skills, etc.

With AI on a gnarly problem: It does this all for you! So no experiential learning.

I would NOT have had the mental strength in college / grad school to resist. Which would have robbed me of all the skill acquisition that now lets me use AI more effectively. The scaffolding of hard skill acquisition means you have more context to be able to ask AI the right questions, and what you learn from the AI can be bound more easily to your existing knowledge.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#272

Post by nradov » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #248

yubblegum wrote: post #63

I fear that outside of cataclysmic global warfare or some sort of butlerian jihad (which amounts to the same) this genie is not going back into the bottle. This tech is 100% aligned with the goals of the 0.001% that own and control it, and almost all of the negatives cited by Kyle and likeminded (such as myself) are in fact positives for them in context of massive population reduction to eliminate "useless eaters" an…

The article skips the potential upsides of an AI future - like curing diseases, abundance, merge type immortality. I'm keen myself with nothing to do with the goals of the 0.001% really. I think the future generations will like the above and look back on now like we look back at medieval dentistary.

I have nothing against AI as a technology but the notion of it "curing diseases" is so silly. The limiting factors are largely in fundamental biology research and then human clinical trials. There is no plausible way that LLMs will make those activities 10× faster or cheaper. Hard work still has to be done in the messy real world outside of computers.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#273

Post by acdha » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 5:38 PM UTC

bilegeek wrote: post #182

acdha wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the period news, pretty much everything except lead poisoning and climate change was well known by the 1920s. Rich people wanted cars but a ton of places had resistance from everyone else to what they correctly recognized as removing the public spaces they used and shifting externalities to, for example, the people being hit by cars. What’s really interesting is that you can find newspaper columns in the…

That's also part of the problem. People back then had other systems to make those critiques (or their job didn't require the travel it does now), and now they don't. If alternatives don't exist, and most US people today have never experienced them, there's no demand for them, and you realistically can't expect that demand to come without a massive, grinding slog. Lack of alternatives + political unwillingness to prov…

There's a lot of fear in that for sure. Cars cost the average American household something like 20% of their income (for low income this can be over 30%) so a ton of people would benefit from alternatives, but most people are thinking “if the bus is late more than a couple of times, I‘ll lose my job”. One of the interesting things I've noticed is that there's a lot more social excuse for car problems (which code middle class) than transit/bike problems, and it's interesting seeing how often people who are chronically late to work due to “unexpected” traffic get a free pass compared to the alternatives.

Remote work was the biggest upset to this system in generations but that's being stamped out at many organizations.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#274

Post by dpark » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 5:38 PM UTC

cryptopian wrote: post #200

Aerroon wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose in the Netherlands they use carts and horses to stock up the supermarket? To transport coal to the powerplant (or the wind turbine blades to where the wind turbine will be built)? Surely a bicycle isn't enough for that. You might be only talking about personal cars, but you've got to remember that trucks share the same infrastructure cars use. Modern city wealth wouldn't be possible without engined vehicles…

There's a lot of people in this comment thread interpreting the post's analogy as "ban all cars forever" rather than "consider how to use them as part of a wider societal strategy that makes places better for everyone". You can implement all kinds of transport badly. Trains can suck if they don't take you where you want to go, bicycles suck if wherever you live doesn't provide acceptable parking methods. Cars are gre…

> Buses will suck

Buses are only workable because of cars. We build roads for cars first and trucks second. Buses are at most 3rd in the list and getting to use them is an incidental side benefit.

No one builds enough roads for buses. They have to use the roads built for cars.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#275

Post by _DeadFred_ » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

armonster wrote: post #46

baal80spam wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because a technology can be useful doesn't mean it will have positive effects on society. You say it in a way that it sounds like automobiles don't have a positive effect. I don't agree - they have some negative effects but overall they have a vast net positive effect for everyone.

Their negative effects are much more vast, subtle, and cultural. You could say many of the broad and widespread mental issues we have in the US is the result of automobiles leading to suburbanization and thus isolation of people. It has created an expensive barrier of entry for existing in society and added a ton of friction to doing anything and everything, especially with people. That's not even getting into the cl…

Wasn't one of the surprising upsides of cars that incidents of incest went down dramatically? There are odd/unexpected non-logistics upsides.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#276

Post by dpark » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

CityOfThrowaway wrote: post #236

nehal3m wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, industrial scale transport and personal transport share a rolling platform with an engine, but they're different platforms with different requirements, different economics and different lifecycles. However, you're making my point for me. If you fail to invest in good public transport it will suck. That is downstream from designing your society around cars instead of transportation for everyone. Bikes do not wor…

> Regarding bad weather; if winter is bad enough for bicycles to fail, then certainly it is not safe to drive either This is a big claim with no justification. Cars have dynamic traction control, internal temperature control, etc. You may get frost bite on your bicycle, but almost certainly not in your car. Having four wide wheels makes the vehicle radically more stable. Add seat belts, air bags, etc. cars have far m…

There’s probably very little weather that is safe for cars but unsafe for bikes. Uncomfortable, yes, possibly extremely so. But you can bike in a downpour so severe that it’s unsafe to drive specifically because you’re not in a 2 ton deaths machine.

Maybe a severe enough snow storm? Even then we’re in Goldilocks territory for the storm to be unsafe for bikes but safe(ish) for cars.

The biggest factor is that people simply will not get on their bikes in severe enough weather. At least not in most places. Maybe in the Netherlands they’ll bike in a blizzard.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#277

Post by nradov » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 5:44 PM UTC

grvdrm wrote: post #111

Two years ago, I was enjoying a drink with my wife, her friend, a very senior female VC partner, and another friend. Somehow we talked AI in some depth, and the VC at one point said (about AI): “I don’t know what our kids are going to do for work. I don’t know what jobs there will be to do.” That same VC invests in AI companies and by what I heard about her, has done phenomenally well. I think about that exchange all…

At the beginning of the industrial revolution we didn't know what people would do for work but we eventually figured it out. Human demands are effectively infinite so there will always be work for other humans to satisfy those demands. The transition period may be disruptive.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#278

Post by 23j423j423hj » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 5:47 PM UTC

armonster wrote: post #46

baal80spam wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just because a technology can be useful doesn't mean it will have positive effects on society. You say it in a way that it sounds like automobiles don't have a positive effect. I don't agree - they have some negative effects but overall they have a vast net positive effect for everyone.

Their negative effects are much more vast, subtle, and cultural. You could say many of the broad and widespread mental issues we have in the US is the result of automobiles leading to suburbanization and thus isolation of people. It has created an expensive barrier of entry for existing in society and added a ton of friction to doing anything and everything, especially with people. That's not even getting into the cl…

The best way I've ever heard it described is that in a car-dominant society, every new neighbor in your neighborhood is somebody in your way, taking up your spot, making you late in your commute.

The psychological effects of this are enormous and under discussed.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#279

Post by archagon » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 5:47 PM UTC

baal80spam wrote: post #36

lukev wrote: post #17

This is a must-read series of articles, and I think Kyle is very much correct. The comparison to the adoption of automobiles is apt, and something I've thought about before as well. Just because a technology can be useful doesn't mean it will have positive effects on society. That said, I'm more open to using LLMs in constrained scenarios, in cases where they're an appropriate tool for the job and the downsides can b…

> Just because a technology can be useful doesn't mean it will have positive effects on society. You say it in a way that it sounds like automobiles don't have a positive effect. I don't agree - they have some negative effects but overall they have a vast net positive effect for everyone.

I'd say commercial automobiles probably have a net positive effect. (Though their impact on pollution and climate change can't be discounted.) But daily life in walkable and public transitable European cities is so, so much nicer and healthier than in most American cities. I'd trade ubiquitous personal automobiles for that in a heartbeat.

Re: The future of everything is lies, I guess: Where do we go from here?

#280

Post by dpark » Thu, Apr 16, 2026, 5:48 PM UTC

nehal3m wrote: post #191

Aerroon wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose in the Netherlands they use carts and horses to stock up the supermarket? To transport coal to the powerplant (or the wind turbine blades to where the wind turbine will be built)? Surely a bicycle isn't enough for that. You might be only talking about personal cars, but you've got to remember that trucks share the same infrastructure cars use. Modern city wealth wouldn't be possible without engined vehicles…

Sure, industrial scale transport and personal transport share a rolling platform with an engine, but they're different platforms with different requirements, different economics and different lifecycles. However, you're making my point for me. If you fail to invest in good public transport it will suck. That is downstream from designing your society around cars instead of transportation for everyone. Bikes do not wor…

> industrial scale transport and personal transport share a rolling platform with an engine, but they're different platforms with different requirements, different economics and different lifecycles.

What does this mean? This feels a bit like a distinction without a difference, as the infrastructure built is shared by both.

> although school children here will happily pedal 10km to school and back on the daily

How flat is it there? I can’t imagine a typical kid biking 10km each way around me. I feel like the average kid at my kids’ school would take 45 minutes or more to bike that distance.