Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

aphyr.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 830 posts

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

#311

Post by MSFT_Edging »

jmccaf wrote: post #67
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just started work on a project. Greenfield and "AI accelerated". PRs diffs are in the range of 10s of thousands of lines. In the PR, it is suggested to not actually read all the code as it would take too long.

If you push a change, or you approve, you're responsible for the change and its effects later. Regardless of size. If change is too big, tell your teammates its too big to review and to refactor to bite-size with their great coding agents. Use AI models also for review of large changes, consider a checklist . Setup CI and integration tests (also can be AI assisted)

Oh there's plenty of CI, linting, etc. Half of which is not properly plumbed in.

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

#312

Post by asdff »

nehal3m wrote: post #217
prescriptivist wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't really say what my perspective is on whether the suburbs are good or bad or cars are good or bad. I think there are plenty of reasonable arguments as to whether they are or not. What I am dubious about is that they are somehow the source of some hand-wavy "widespread" mental health issue in America.

I wouldn't be surprised if it contributed significantly because of the lack of (access to) third places [0] it breeds, but that is conjecture on my part, so fair enough. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

I would be hesitant to draw that correlation. IMO cars give you more access to third places, not less. With a car one can cover far more ground in a given 30 min drive after rush hour died down probably in every city in the world, than what one can cover in 30 mins walk and transit ride (especially when transit schedules might favor a commute into the central part of town vs some off peak trip to a random corner of town).

Say what you will about the ills of the car, but it takes a lot of specific context for them to emerge as the worst option of transport from an individual perspective. Really most of the cars ills are from their collective harms, something most can't appreciate as a tragedy of the commons sort of failing.

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

#313

Post by nradov »

archagon wrote: post #288
geremiiah wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This tech is 100% aligned with the goals of the 0.001% that own and control it If AI is smart enough to replace the 99.999% it's also smart enough to replace the 0.001%.

The 0.001% has a controlling stake in AI, so they're in the clear. The 99.999% needs to assert their controlling stake in the technology. I don't know what this looks like. Maybe ubiquitous unionizing, coupled with a fully public and openly-trained LLM.

There are already several fully open source LLMs. You can start participating in those projects today.

https://www.bentoml.com/blog/navigating-the-world-of-open-so...

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

#314

Post by EinigeKreise »

chungusamongus wrote: post #293
throwanem wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go look in a mirror, not at me. That's where the argument is waiting that you're feeling urged toward.

What you just said was an elaborate tu quoque fallacy. You aren't comprehending my basic point, which is that individual ethical decisions are not going to make a difference when all of the broader incentives are causing people to act otherwise.

The idea behind principles is that you're supposed to stick to them anyways.

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

#315

Post by sambishop »

couchand wrote: post #309
sambishop wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

automobiles -> suburbanization -> isolation -> mental health crisis seems like a fairly easy hypothesis to test since there are still millions of people in america living densely and carless in places like nyc and you could demonstrate that they have a statistically significant gap in mental illnesses. so easy to test that i bet several people already have and you could just check.

I can tell you as a resident of New York City that the negative effect of the automobile on the built environment is very much present here as well.

for sure! but that's irrelevant to a causal chain that includes "suburbanization", since you're not in the suburbs (in manhattan at least, the walkability does drop off pretty quickly)

another interesting tack: how long did we have cars before we started talking about a widespread mental health crisis? is there a more parimonious explanation, like a different event that is located closer to it in time? perhaps smartphones or the internet?

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

#316

Post by nradov »

californical wrote: post #297
nradov wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But what if we could predict which treatments would be most successful with ~70% accuracy? It would potentially speed up the feedback loops right? There may also be downsides, like skipping testing things that would enhance our fundamental understanding of something because the AI was wrong. But that’s already a problem , and having a better gauge in the early stages could be really helpful

What if I could flap my arms and fly to the moon? You haven't presented any scientific evidence that LLMs will enable such prediction accuracy. It's pure speculation and hope. Some smaller, incremental improvements to optimize research workflows are much more likely.

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

#317

Post by d3ckard »

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…

Disputable. One could argue that artificial nature of US cities (i.e. lack of centuries of accumulated decisions) were bigger driver of this than cars themselves.

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

#318

Post by asdff »

nradov wrote: post #265
recursive wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a hard argument to make that bikes can suck more than cars because of parking . As a bicycle enthusiast, I can provide you with some better reasons. You'll get rained on. You'll get sweaty. The helmet will mess up your fancy hair. You can't go as fast. Parking is one of the biggest upsides of bikes IMO.

Parking is one of the biggest downsides of bikes IMO. Bikes are great, I ride mine whenever I can. But most places lack secure bike parking and the police don't take bike theft seriously. So sometimes I drive my car even to places where I could easily ride a bike just because I'm confident the car will still be there when I get out.

Fwiw the only place I had a bike stolen was the secured underground garage in my apartment complex. Never had issues just parking it out front while running errands or other such stuff, or parking outside work during the day. I'd figure foot traffic would keep angle grinding down. I've personally not seen angle grinding done that brazenly before, seems liable overnight though where the thief has time to work and the assumption no one is awake to hear the grinder (such as what happened in the case of my apartment).

If I can't find a good spot to actually lock up the bike though I will just bring it in to wherever I'm going. Shops or restaurants don't seem to care if a bike is parked in the corner and you can thread your ulock through the wheels and make it useless to ride off with.

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

#319

Post by nradov »

miltonlost wrote: post #34
chungusamongus wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly it. This person does not understand the coercive competition of the market. If you don't use new tech, you are going to be undercut by people who do. And every HR dept is going to expect to to have experience with AI even if the department that’s hiring doesn't really use it. If the author's supposed solution to the problem has negative personal consequences, why would you do it? To be nice?

Because I don't like the feeling my conscience gives me by doing something I think is evil and bad. Some people have moral lines that they won't cross when finding jobs. If my competitors are filling their flour with sawdust, guess I got to just do the same?

Your moral compass is skewed. Customers don't care what tools we use, they just want products that work. Is a wheat farmer who ploughs a field with horses more moral than one who uses a tractor? The resulting flour tastes the same either way.

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

#320

Post by asdff »

sambishop wrote: post #305
armonster wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

automobiles -> suburbanization -> isolation -> mental health crisis seems like a fairly easy hypothesis to test since there are still millions of people in america living densely and carless in places like nyc and you could demonstrate that they have a statistically significant gap in mental illnesses. so easy to test that i bet several people already have and you could just check.

You miss how this mental health crisis seemed to emerge in lock step with screentime. Not really suburbs. It is funny when people wax poetic now about the carefree latchkey adventurous childhoods of the boomers or gen x. I mean all of that stuff was little adventures happening in the suburbs. Nothing else to do inside so this is what would happen. You give that kid along with the rest of the kids in the neighborhood, well, tiktok there's your isolation and mental health crisis source right there. At least in the early dialup days kids were kicked off periodically so parents could use the landline, and there just wasn't such a bottomless well of content either to spend all waking time consuming.

EDIT: missed your other reply a few mins earlier alluding to smartphones already

Post reply on HN