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Comment by alex_young | Hacker News Reader

  …Sumerian, written in cuneiform, was humanity's first writing system. A language that hasn't been spoken in four thousand years.
  The same question circles again: Why am I doing this?
  Why am I trying to learn Sumerian, a language that hasn't been spoken for five thousand years?…

Watch out reader, by the end it maybe indeed turn out that Sumerian hasn’t been spoken for 10, 20, or 30 thousand years. The LLM just doesn’t know what sounds better.

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From wikipedia

> Attested from c. 2900 BC. Went out of vernacular use around 1700 BC; used as a classical language until about 100 AD.

So vernacular use stopped roughly 3725 years ago

And it hasn't been spoken for almost 2000 years

So why am I learning a language that hasn't been spoken in 50 years?

I wonder if this is because it’s trained on Reddit threads? There are these threads where someone says “wow, they found $100k at the drug bust??” And then next guy says “yeah $80k is a crazy number for a single bust” followed by “well done on them for finding $50k”.

> Watch out reader, by the end it maybe indeed turn out that Sumerian hasn’t been spoken for 10, 20, or 30 thousand years. The LLM just doesn’t know what sounds better.

"Dad, can I have ten pounds?"

"Five pounds? What do you want two pounds for? I'm not giving you a pound just like that without a reason!"

My version ends with “take one and get something for your brother too.”

It reminds me of David from Prometheus, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRfx05qKVxg.

I chucked because it reminded me of the Steven Soderbergh movie with Matt Damon, "The Informant!"

Maybe indeed an LLM would have caught my little faux pas, or perhaps invented a more eloquent one.

> Maybe indeed an LLM would have caught my little faux pas, or perhaps invented a more eloquent one. reply

Did you just respond to yourself but forgot to switch your handle?

This is so weird, because the author of the comment isn't the author of the article, given how different they look on their respective pictures.

Not too sure what the incentive is here. Maybe just advertising his AI business?

I think you're being too generous by assuming that both of those pictures are real pictures.

Damn, I start feeling like a granny who believes everything Facebook feed shows her

It is impossible to believe anything on the internet anymore

Yep, I meant to reply to myself. I was pointing out that the typo in my first comment could have been caught by an LLM.

Truly what is going on

It might be his aircover digital worker who does automated sales call (and maybe writing)?

Literally lol

Can you please explain?

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