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Comment by isoprophlex | Hacker News Reader

Now these seem to be truly artificially intelligent agents. Memory, volition, autonomy, something like an OODA loop or whatever you want to call it, and a persistent environment. Very nice concept, and I'm positive the learnings can be applied to more mundane business problems, too.

If only I could get management to understand that a bunch of prompts shitting into eachother isn't "cutting-edge agentic AI"...

But then again their jobs probably depend on selling something that looks like real innovation happening to the C-levels...

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> If only I could get management to understand that a bunch of prompts shitting into eachother isn't "cutting-edge agentic AI"...

It's unclear to me how the linked project is different from what you described.

Plenty of existing agents have "memory" and many other things you named.

Just so you know, the English noun for things that have been learned is, "lessons."

Also: "learnings".

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/learn...

"knowledge or a piece of information obtained by study or experience"

"I am already incorporating some of these learnings into my work and getting better results."

That example was added in 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20190903044149/https://dictionar...

You can clearly see that the prior use was very different.

Cambridge Dictionary just documents that it's in fact used that way. One may still disagree on whether it should be.

"That's not English" is usually prescriptive, rather than descriptive. And though English does not have a central authority, individuals are very much allowed to hold prescriptive beliefs - that is how language evolves.

That example was added in 2022.

I'm very sure that using "learnings" in a way that is roughly synonymous to "lessons" predates 2022 though. It may have only been added to that specific dictionary in 2022, but the usage is certainly older.

"That's not English" is usually prescriptive, rather than descriptive. And though English does not have a central authority, individuals are very much allowed to hold prescriptive beliefs - that is how language evolves.

Very true. :-)

> individuals are very much allowed to hold prescriptive beliefs - that is how language evolves.

I think, actually, it's the case that language evolves around those people who are too stubbornly prescriptivist.

I believe that “learnings” is also a word that could be applied in this context.

It seems to me “learnings” would actually be less ambiguous than “lessons”. A lesson brings to mind a thing being taught, not just learned.

Let’s take this learning offline and circle back during the next sync, team

I just threw up.

s/team/fam/

Yup, and "ask" is a verb, God damn it, not a noun. But people in the tech world frequently use "learnings" instead of "lessons," "ask" as a noun, "like" as filler, and "downfall" when they mean "downside." Best to make your peace and move on with life.

Just FYI: that second comma is incorrect.

'Gift' vs 'give' also rustles my jimmies. The phrase 'he gifted it to her' doesn't mean anything different from 'he gave it to her'. As a Calvinite, my stance is that 'verbing weirds language'.

https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1993/01/25

Ew, likewise. I'd even go so far as to say that "verbing" this way is "impactful," and not in a good way. "Going forward," we should all try to use language more thoughtfully.

The C&H strip is wonderful. That whole comic strip is brilliant and timeless.

Nah, give implies it was just given. Something being gifted has specific emotional, cultural and character connotations that differ from simply giving, imo.

I'm an old man and have heard "learnings" used to mean "lessons" for most of my life.

I think "learnings" has advantages over "lessons" given that "learnings" has one meaning, while "lessons" can have more than one meaning.

Whether it's correct or not, are we surprised it's used this way? Consider the word "earnings" and how similar its definition is to "learnings."

"learning" as a noun descends from Old English so has always been current in the language in the intended sense.[1]

"lesson" came from Old French in the 13th century and has changed its original meaning over time.[2]

There's not one single dialect of English so your comment comes off as unnecessarily prescriptivist and has spawned significant off-topic commentary (including this very comment) in response to an otherwise perfectly worded composition.

[1]: https://www.etymonline.com/word/learning [2]: https://www.etymonline.com/word/lesson

Learnings is also correct...

Learned can also be learnt (my preference), etc. English has a lot of redundancy, but that's why we love it, right?

>If only I could get management to understand that a bunch of prompts shitting into eachother isn't "cutting-edge agentic AI"...

It should never be this way. Even with narrow AI, there needs to be a governance framework that helps measure the output and capture potential risks (hallucinations, wrong data / links, wrong summaries, etc)

Do you have any resources on that topic? I’d be interested.

On narrow AI or generative AI Risk Management?

Risk management.

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