Live data from Hacker News

Prime Agent: A self-improving RLM agent

primeintellect.ai

51–60 of 81 posts

Re: Prime Agent: A self-improving RLM agent

#51
post #5

https://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html

I vouch for this story, personally. I love it. I consider it a classic among science fiction novellas. It does include some brutal sadomasochism with graphic torture, that's true, and that's why it isn't better known. If that part bothers you, which is fair, I would skim past it. The story overall is quite worth it

I put this novella into the same bucket as the altered carbon books. So glad I read them, absolutely packed with weird ideas, but I will probably never have the stomach to revisit them.

Re: Prime Agent: A self-improving RLM agent

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I vouch for this story, personally. I love it. I consider it a classic among science fiction novellas. It does include some brutal sadomasochism with graphic torture, that's true, and that's why it isn't better known. If that part bothers you, which is fair, I would skim past it. The story overall is quite worth it

Tbh the torture scenes are not nearly as disturbing as the underage incest. It's like "Saw" vs. a pedo flick from the 70s. Especially weird since the latter is portrayed like some kind of innocent ideal. It's frustrating because apart from those (awful) aspects the story is quite thoughtful and compelling. I always recommend people skip the final chapter since the resulting existential cliffhanger is far better than…

> the underage incest [...] Especially weird since the latter is portrayed like some kind of innocent ideal.

(Potential spoilers to the story ahead) Are you talking specifically about the "re-population" stuff from the ending? It was many years I last read it, but I seem to recall that there was hesitation and stuff involved, together with "This is literally the only way to re-populate since we're just two people" basically, not sure what other direction it could have gone into, unless you'd just skip describing it completely. But maybe I misremember (or my brain subconsciously suppress my memory) more of the same horrible stuff from the story?

Re: Prime Agent: A self-improving RLM agent

#53
post #5

https://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html

I vouch for this story, personally. I love it. I consider it a classic among science fiction novellas. It does include some brutal sadomasochism with graphic torture, that's true, and that's why it isn't better known. If that part bothers you, which is fair, I would skim past it. The story overall is quite worth it

My issue was that the violence and incest were one of the main drivers of the story. It felt like reading some sex novela that happens to have some great scifi elements rather than the other way around.

Re: Prime Agent: A self-improving RLM agent

#54
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For everyone downvoting: It's literally a story about the creation of mankind's first artificial general intelligence, Prime Intellect, and the consequences of that discovery.

I feel that more warning is needed for this book. Everything you’ve stated is true, but the book’s first chapter contains some of the most disturbing depictions of stuff I don’t know I can type here on HN. Additionally, the last chapter put a really bad taste in my mouth. That said, the stuff that deals with AI and its implications on the universe was great and more relevant than ever. The way PI works is pretty simi…

Is it only the first chapter? I remember it to be the bulk of the book.

Re: Prime Agent: A self-improving RLM agent

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tbh the torture scenes are not nearly as disturbing as the underage incest. It's like "Saw" vs. a pedo flick from the 70s. Especially weird since the latter is portrayed like some kind of innocent ideal. It's frustrating because apart from those (awful) aspects the story is quite thoughtful and compelling. I always recommend people skip the final chapter since the resulting existential cliffhanger is far better than…

> the underage incest [...] Especially weird since the latter is portrayed like some kind of innocent ideal. (Potential spoilers to the story ahead) Are you talking specifically about the "re-population" stuff from the ending? It was many years I last read it, but I seem to recall that there was hesitation and stuff involved, together with "This is literally the only way to re-populate since we're just two people" ba…

Yes, the final chapter.

Aside from it being biologically impossible to repopulate from a single couple, it was not really portrayed ambiguously. I don't care to reread it, but from what I remember, the main protagonist was the driving force behind it, grooms her own (single-digit-age?) daughter into the idea, who then sleeps with her own father in graphic detail. He is a little hesitant at first, but relents almost immediately, and this is implied to be a good thing. Cue decades of continued child-incest and inbreeding.

Putting the characters in that situation and resolving it the explicit way he did was a deliberate choice the author makes -- it didn't have to be that way.

Re: Prime Agent: A self-improving RLM agent

#57
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

here is a take on a smol agent ("smol") - 21 lines of Go - no 3rd party dependencies https://github.com/smol-env/smol easier to add and customize stuff when you start from a small base think of it as your starter dough

got one in typescript? or node.js with javascript?

I'm adding python in a few minutes and then looking into other languages including javascript and typescript

all with the same zero 3rd party dependencies approach

also want to do clojure, unfortunately it looks like java does not come with json support out of the box

Re: Prime Agent: A self-improving RLM agent

#58
post #5

https://localroger.com/prime-intellect/mopiidx.html

I vouch for this story, personally. I love it. I consider it a classic among science fiction novellas. It does include some brutal sadomasochism with graphic torture, that's true, and that's why it isn't better known. If that part bothers you, which is fair, I would skim past it. The story overall is quite worth it

Years and years ago I saw this story on k5 when it came out and never read it -- but from commentary I always thought was some sort of hard sci-fi exploration of what happens when we get AGI/ASI.

So all these years later AI is real, I see the story again, and I figure, hey, why not read it. And how very surprised I was to find out it's basically a horny kink story with a little bit of AI/SF window dressing!

Re: Prime Agent: A self-improving RLM agent

#59
post #46

LLM-generated code that seemingly went without much review or design is always such an interesting dive into just how bloated you can make code. In this repository, multiple files are close to 10K LOC, one file contains a switch statement that has so many case statements it spans more than 1000 lines, and lots of other fun stuff. I guess it depends on the model you're trying to use, but seems most of them prefer smal…

> In this repository, multiple files are close to 10K LOC, one file contains a switch statement that has so many case statements it spans more than 1000 lines, and lots of other fun stuff. Pft. Over multiple cases? I've seen 1000 lines inside a single if-block. The clause was always true. I was not able to break that thing up in my time at that company. Human wrote that nonsense. Thing is, the app was pretty successf…

At all feels a bit like being bullish on the adjustable wrench, to me.

It has lots of utility. Very broad… but not the best for a lot of things. It will be a ubiquitous tool. Outcomes will depend heavily on the quality of the mechanic unless you’re tightening a bolt on your fence gate.

Post reply on HN