Interesting. It rolls a few dice and presents a snapshot of someone who might plausibly have lived at a random place and time. Mine was a girl who lived on the Deccan Plateau in India, and died at six of tuberculosis.
Any Human Ever – One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived
171–180 of 323 posts
Re: Any Human Ever – One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived
#172I drew a woman born in 715 CE in the Yangtze Basin. It claims that 96% of women were married, the average age of marriage was 18, and 44% of women died before age 15. Clearly these facts can't all be true simultaneously. The firt citation for marriage data is listed as "Hajnal (RH31)", but links to a seemingly unrelated WorldCat search. The second citation is to "Kaplan (RH03)", which I was able to track down on sci-…
Even if this wasn't vibe coded it would be impossible to fact check billions of possible lives. I think thought provoking toys like this are a great use of AI, assuming no one takes them seriously.
I am not sure why it is thought-provoking for a website to lie to you? There is plenty of real history and demography to read about.
Re: Any Human Ever – One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe, but I doubt it. The vast majority of the sources, including the two listed for this claim, are listed as "attributed", meaning "A model (Opus or Fable) claims that this is what the cited source says. In my spot checks, I've found these claims to be accurate; still, since it's just a model claiming that author x says y, there's a nonzero chance that it's a hallucination."[1] I couldn't track down the first sour…
“ Claude accurately remembered the first source when it was stolen during the training process” I see…
I don't follow what your point is here. If you're not aware, Anthropic pirated many books via libgen and similar tools for use during the training process[1]. Maybe you are not aware of this, or do not consider it theft?
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us-judge-approves-anthropics-1...
Re: Any Human Ever – One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived
#174Her farthest journey was a day's walk, to a nearby market town. I think this is what boggles my mind most about antiquity: the vast majority of people rarely ventured much past where they were born (unless they did a likely once in a lifetime religious pilgrimage which took the better part of a year). Seeing as most other people didn't venture further either, you really got to know the people around you very well. Co…
There were and have always been trading and other exchanges all over the world. The Egtved girl was traveling from north to central Germany, probably for marriage. Now, if we mean most people did not do this, then sure. But there's a persistent idea that ancient cultures were not in contact with each other, and this is largely disproven.
Re: Any Human Ever – One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived
#175Just my luck.
503CE, dead at six months from smallpox.
Re: Any Human Ever – One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived
#176I drew a woman born in 715 CE in the Yangtze Basin. It claims that 96% of women were married, the average age of marriage was 18, and 44% of women died before age 15. Clearly these facts can't all be true simultaneously. The firt citation for marriage data is listed as "Hajnal (RH31)", but links to a seemingly unrelated WorldCat search. The second citation is to "Kaplan (RH03)", which I was able to track down on sci-…
I am genuinely puzzled as to why this kind of vibe-coded site are so popular on HN.
I consider the crowd here to be much smarter than I am, which is why I enjoyed the links that were shared and the discussions that followed.
The website is pretty, but the statistics and stories are the main point. Yet we are being fed hallucinated false claims, and somehow, that doesn't seem to be a problem...
I don't understand why it gets so many upvotes. We know Claude can create websites like this brilliantly now. The novel and interesting part is the transformation of the data. But if that part is sloppy, what's the point?
Re: Any Human Ever – One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived
#177This site is pure slop?
Re: Any Human Ever – One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
I drew Vuk,a boy who lived in the 13th century Balkans. He died at 2. His dad was already gone. According to the statistics the life expectancy at birth for him was around 50%. I suspect a lot of our random people would have died early, if they were born before the 19th or 20th century...
Whole years! You'll are so lucky! The reincarnation roulette gave me this: 49 BCE, he lived 1 month, dying of dysentery. I guess I'll stop complaining about my life then...
He could hardly complain about his, as he didn't have one.
Re: Any Human Ever – One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived
#179I drew a woman born in 715 CE in the Yangtze Basin. It claims that 96% of women were married, the average age of marriage was 18, and 44% of women died before age 15. Clearly these facts can't all be true simultaneously. The firt citation for marriage data is listed as "Hajnal (RH31)", but links to a seemingly unrelated WorldCat search. The second citation is to "Kaplan (RH03)", which I was able to track down on sci-…
There are plenty of problems with the site but that some stats like marriage do not count dead newborns as unwed instead of invalid for the stat is not really one of them.
Re: Any Human Ever – One life, drawn at random from all who have ever lived
#180This is what I got:
Seojun - Seojun is not a real person. But his life story is created from the statistical reality of the Korean Peninsula in 1999 CE.
In 1999 CE, Seojun was born in the countryside near Pongch’ŏn-ŭp. His village is home to about 250 people. Among four children, he was the fourth. He eats largely rice, soybean paste and tofu, dried fish and shellfish, and pickled cabbage and radish, with persimmon and jujube in season, and tea as well. He knows how to read and write. Seojun stands about 167 cm tall (5 ft 6 in).
--- if it's not obvious why this is problematic and extremely offensive I don't know what I can say to you. You're talking about GenZ who has access to tiktok and food delivery apps as if you're talking about someone from Joseon dynasty from hundreds of years ago. No one's favorite food is rice and soybean paste. He knows how to read and write and sky is blue.