Live data from Hacker News

The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

acko.net

311–320 of 500 posts

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#311
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is there to reduce our agency, to make it easier to fire us, to put us in even more precarious position Could be. It could also end up freeing us from every commercial dependency we have. Write your own OS, your own mail app, design your own machinery to farm with. It’s here, so I don’t know where you’re going with “I’m unhappy this is happening and someone should do something”

It could also end up freeing us from every commercial dependency we have. Write your own OS, your own mail app, design your own machinery to farm with. Lmfao LLM's can barely count rows in a spreadsheet accurately, this is just batshit crazy. edit: also the solution here isn't that every one writes their own software (based on open source code available on the internet no doubt) we just use that open source software,…

This is one of those things where people who don't know how to use tools think they're bad, like people who would write whole sentences into search engines in the 90s.

LLMs are bad at counting the number of rows in a spreadsheet. LLMs are great at "write a Python script that counts the number of rows in this spreadsheet".

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#312

> Video games stand out as one market where consumers have pushed back effectively No, it's simply untrue. Players only object against AI art assets. And only when they're painfully obvious. No one cares about how the code is written. If you actually read the words used in Steam AI survey you'll know Steam has completely caved in for AI-gen code as well. It's specifically worded like this: > content such as artwork,…

> Players only object against AI art assets. And only when they're painfully obvious. Restaurant-goers only object against you spitting in their food if it's painfully obvious (i.e. they see you do it, or they taste it) Players are buying your art. They are valuing it based on how you say you made it. They came down hard on asset-flipping shovelware before the rise of AI (where someone else made the art and you just…

> They came down hard on asset-flipping shovelware before the rise of AI

That’s not what I remember, I remember PUBG being a viral hit that extensively used asset flipping.

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#313
post #106

Many people don't know this, but the Luddites were right. I studied Art History and this particular movement. One of the claims of the Luddites is that quality would go down, because their craft took half a lifetime to master (it was passed down from parent to chile.) I was able to feel wool scarves made in europe from the middle ages. (In museum storage, under the guidance of a curator) They are a fundamentally diff…

> Another interesting thing is that we do not know how they made them so fine. The technique was never recorded or documented in detail, as it was passed down from parent to child. So the knowledge is actually lost forever. This is a rather extreme failure on their part. There’s nothing admirable about hoarding knowledge and forcing it to only be passed down in person. I don’t see this as the Luddites being right at…

If you buy real handcrafted scarves they are both thinner and warmer than anything factory made bcz of their choice of pashmina wool.

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also end up freeing us from every commercial dependency we have. Write your own OS, your own mail app, design your own machinery to farm with. Lmfao LLM's can barely count rows in a spreadsheet accurately, this is just batshit crazy. edit: also the solution here isn't that every one writes their own software (based on open source code available on the internet no doubt) we just use that open source software,…

This is one of those things where people who don't know how to use tools think they're bad, like people who would write whole sentences into search engines in the 90s. LLMs are bad at counting the number of rows in a spreadsheet. LLMs are great at "write a Python script that counts the number of rows in this spreadsheet".

Do you think asking any LLM in the next 100 years to "write a Python script that generates an OS" will work?

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#315

Ironic article considering this website's 3D parallax effect with music and animation was all made with AI. /s

My apologies if this is a joke I’m not understanding, but as far as I can tell with the wayback machine, this animation predates not just coding/generative AI, but the Attention paper and the founding of OpenAI too.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150314221334/http://acko.net/

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#316

> Video games stand out as one market where consumers have pushed back effectively No, it's simply untrue. Players only object against AI art assets. And only when they're painfully obvious. No one cares about how the code is written. If you actually read the words used in Steam AI survey you'll know Steam has completely caved in for AI-gen code as well. It's specifically worded like this: > content such as artwork,…

No, it's simply untrue. Players only object against AI art assets. And only when they're painfully obvious. No one cares about how the code is written. This reminded me of a conversation about AI I had with an artist last year. She was furious and cursing and saying how awful it is for stealing from artists, but then admitted she uses it for writing descriptions and marketing posts to sell her art.

Which I would point out isn’t necessarily hypocrisy on their part.

I can rage against guns and gun manufacturers for their negative effects on our nation and hate when they are used for monstrous evil, but also believe that police should have firearms and that the second amendment is important. It’s a tool. You can hate the way it’s made and marketed, and hate many of its popular use cases, and still think there are acceptable ways to use and market it without requiring a total abolition.

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#318

There’s a cold reality that we in this profession have yet to accept: nobody cares about our code. Nobody cares whether it’s pretty or clever or elegant. Sometimes, rarely, they care whether it’s maintainable. We are only craftsmen to ourselves and each other. To anyone else we are factory workers producing widgets to sell. Once we accept this then there is little surprise that the factory owners want us using a tool…

They don't care until the whole thing collapses in on itself from the technical debt. Then they have surprised pikachu face when it takes an insane about of effort to add a simple feature.

I agree, but nothing about LLM assisted coding is by neccessity "technical debt". Tons of developers will use it to spit out shitty code they don't even review themselves, but the concept at it's core doesn't always mean a lower quality end product.

I like Simon Willison's take on this: "Your job is to deliver code you have proven to work". If someone is spitting out LLM trash and shipping it, that means the job isn't being done properly. That can be done with and without an LLM.

https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-proven-to-work/

Re: The L in "LLM" Stands for Lying

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A library is a collection of data structures functions. My argument still holds. > Syntactic reuse would be macros Well sure. My point is that what can be reused is decided ahead of time and encoded in the syntax. Whereas with LLMs it is not, and is encoded in the semantics. > Pragmatics Didn't know what that is. Consider my post updated with the better terms.

I’m not sure your logic is sound. It sounds like you are insisting on some nuance which simply isn’t there. LLM generates unmaintainable slop, which is extremely difficult to reason about, uses wrong abstractions, violates DRY, violates cohesion, etc. The industry has known how to reuse codes for two decades now (npm was released 16 years ago; pip 18 years ago). Using LLMs for code reuse is a step in the wrong direct…

Oh sure the quality is extremely unreliable and I am not a fan of its style of coding either. Requires quite a bit of hand holding and sometimes it truly enrages me. I am just saying that LLM technology opens up another dimension of code reuse which is broader. Still a ways to go, not in the foundation model, those have plateaued, but in refining them for coding.
Post reply on HN