Live data from Hacker News

Memorizing session transcripts isn't useful

12gramsofcarbon.com

161–168 of 168 posts

Re: Memorizing session transcripts isn't useful

#161

I like the memory system, in general. For reference I'm using mostly Opus 4.8 + Max effort. It will often pull things out of memory that are relevant. Like I'll ask it to come up with a few options I should consider for, say, a self-hosted OIDC provider and it'll say things like "Considering the size of your operations team, this might be a better fit because of X and Y". Now, I'll agree that this is probably the sor…

It seems like a prerequisite is a certain level of world model and associated reasoning ability. Your examples are entirely dependent on the past context being relevant to the current situation. That's particularly tricky if you regularly ask about hypotheticals or problems that you're assisting someone else with. A human would probably ask clarifying questions such as "is this for the operations team at X? are they…

>A human would probably ask clarifying questions

You say that, and that's a possibility, and maybe in your experience that is true. But I'd say I've found actual humans will frequently use existing internal models of something unless they have a reason to believe something has changed to invalidate that. We even have a well worn joke about what happens when you assume.

>you could for example be involved with multiple teams of different sizes that are subject to different rules

Just to clarify, my experience with the memory of these tools doesn't provide any data (for or against) how well/poorly the memory may work with someone who is involved with multiple teams.

Re: Memorizing session transcripts isn't useful

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a prerequisite is a certain level of world model and associated reasoning ability. Your examples are entirely dependent on the past context being relevant to the current situation. That's particularly tricky if you regularly ask about hypotheticals or problems that you're assisting someone else with. A human would probably ask clarifying questions such as "is this for the operations team at X? are they…

>A human would probably ask clarifying questions You say that, and that's a possibility, and maybe in your experience that is true. But I'd say I've found actual humans will frequently use existing internal models of something unless they have a reason to believe something has changed to invalidate that. We even have a well worn joke about what happens when you assume. >you could for example be involved with multiple…

> I'd say I've found actual humans will frequently use existing internal models of something

Sure, I didn't mean to claim that humans perform perfectly. Merely to reference a particular approach in order to illustrate my point about modeling concepts.

> doesn't provide any data (for or against)

It seems a foregone conclusion that it would confuse details between the different contexts in a way that a human (ie an entity with a certain level of world model and reasoning ability) would not be expected to.

Re: Memorizing session transcripts isn't useful

#163
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody cares about code quality /s They only care about the things which you can only get with good code quality like reliability and speed of development.

Right, and to the extent that your coding practices contribute to reliability and speed of development, they are "of quality." Now do the same exercise for "impressiveness" and "crassness." Here, I'll do it for you: > Nobody cares about code quality /s > They only care about the things which you can only get with good code quality like impressiveness and lack of crassness. Sounds silly doesn't it?

Your comment made no sense to me whatsoever.

Re: Memorizing session transcripts isn't useful

#164
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and to the extent that your coding practices contribute to reliability and speed of development, they are "of quality." Now do the same exercise for "impressiveness" and "crassness." Here, I'll do it for you: > Nobody cares about code quality /s > They only care about the things which you can only get with good code quality like impressiveness and lack of crassness. Sounds silly doesn't it?

Your comment made no sense to me whatsoever.

GP was complaining about Claude's "lack of impressiveness" and "crassness."

I said that's silly.

You said "code quality matters".

I said "it's not clear that lack of impressiveness and crassness have anything to do with code quality."

Re: Memorizing session transcripts isn't useful

#165
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The software world is very close to building a super intelligent senior software developer. Yeah. Two more weeks, as they say. Just need to iron out some kinks.

It's the error rate. That's what everyone found when they were trying to go Full Auto with OpenClaw in February. You can rely on it like 95% of the time but that means if you keep it running continuously the error rate rapidly approaches 100%. That's getting a little better with each release, and it might actually hit the point where you can more or less trust it indefinitely (on well defined workflows). Or at least…

With an infinite context window, yes. :)

Re: Memorizing session transcripts isn't useful

#166
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the privilege to keep yourself sharp, most businesses favor productivity over their workers' long term relevancy.

This is the thing that makes me saddest. Second to the fact that none of the management tier promoting and weaponising this insanity will meaningfully suffer consequences. Right now I am lucky that I have the time to recover and learn.

Nothing new under the sun though. It's the barista-brication of the tech field. No crafting skills, to make anyone replaceable.

We saw it before AI. See ServiceNow university, teaching tailored abilities to run as technical consultant, for ServiceNow. That way good luck transitioning.

Re: Memorizing session transcripts isn't useful

#167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the privilege to keep yourself sharp, most businesses favor productivity over their workers' long term relevancy.

That's just business owners and C-suite pocketing the difference while they fire staff and replacing it with AI. At some point somebody would have to start asking "business" some tough questions.

They are firing artisans for cheaper labor who just use AI. They aren't replacing people with AI that's a fallacy.

Re: Memorizing session transcripts isn't useful

#168
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment made no sense to me whatsoever.

GP was complaining about Claude's "lack of impressiveness" and "crassness." I said that's silly. You said "code quality matters". I said "it's not clear that lack of impressiveness and crassness have anything to do with code quality."

Some evidence that crassness is going to matter:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48798815

Post reply on HN