There is no spoon – A software engineers primer for demystified ML • Hacker News Board

Re: There is no spoon – A software engineers primer for demystified ML

#31

Post by jmatthews » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #27

jmatthews wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a trick bud. The github page shows my user name and Claude. The content is intended to be read by an AI agent and explored through a text interface. That is explicit in the readme and the primer itself. If you think you can generate this artifact with a prompt then show me. This was 2 days of exploration and research.

If you think that "2 days" makes it sound a lot... You'd be surprised how long it takes to actually make learning materials. I don't want to be too harsh, in case you're a high school student etc. I see it's good faith, but do note the reaction here.

I'm trying to untangle the "this content isn't valuable" signal from the luddite "Anything with AI is low effort slop"

I appreciate the former and am trying to filter the latter.

Re: There is no spoon – A software engineers primer for demystified ML

#32

Post by jmatthews » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 2:15 PM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #26

jmatthews wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a trick bud. The github page shows my user name and Claude. The content is intended to be read by an AI agent and explored through a text interface. That is explicit in the readme and the primer itself. If you think you can generate this artifact with a prompt then show me. This was 2 days of exploration and research.

An AI agen won't need this, it has been trained on a lot of ML knowledge already. It's basic stuff.

it's not that you're teaching the AI, it's that you're framing the conversation on a reference material and having a conversation around it. Exploring a problem with referential framing, like a white paper or a dense blog post is a useful cognitive hack. You just have to be careful to pin extraordinary claims to extraordinary evidence.

Re: There is no spoon – A software engineers primer for demystified ML

#33

Post by bonoboTP » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

jmatthews wrote: post #31

bonoboTP wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think that "2 days" makes it sound a lot... You'd be surprised how long it takes to actually make learning materials. I don't want to be too harsh, in case you're a high school student etc. I see it's good faith, but do note the reaction here.

I'm trying to untangle the "this content isn't valuable" signal from the luddite "Anything with AI is low effort slop" I appreciate the former and am trying to filter the latter.

I read a couple of good analogies to predict how you and others will feel about your AI content: 1) telling people at the breakfast table about the dream you just had, 2) showing all your loose acquaintances the photos of your newborn baby.

That is, it's very precious and interesting to you, but it really isn't to anyone else. This is true about generated text, images and songs. I've generated a lot of what I think of as bangers with Suno but learned quickly that they have zero value to anyone else. Part of the value to me is the thrill and dopamine hits of having generated it. This simply doesn't translate to anyone else. It will take a while until society internalizes this.

This is not to say that AI can't have any role in the creative process. But the effort will be still high and original human thinking and intent and input is still very important.

Re: There is no spoon – A software engineers primer for demystified ML

#34

Post by jmatthews » Mon, Mar 30, 2026, 3:05 PM UTC

bonoboTP wrote: post #33

jmatthews wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to untangle the "this content isn't valuable" signal from the luddite "Anything with AI is low effort slop" I appreciate the former and am trying to filter the latter.

I read a couple of good analogies to predict how you and others will feel about your AI content: 1) telling people at the breakfast table about the dream you just had, 2) showing all your loose acquaintances the photos of your newborn baby. That is, it's very precious and interesting to you, but it really isn't to anyone else. This is true about generated text, images and songs. I've generated a lot of what I think o…

it's a worthwhile lesson. thank you. There was a great deal of effort on my part, but not in the prose. You've taught me something and I appreciate it.