beepbooptheory

Do we generally feel like they have a good reputation these days though? Like I don't know what people say on Twitter now I guess, but I do remember when they were advertising Elon speaking at their conference at the height of the Government Efficiency saga, and it really dawned on me that something like public sentiment is kinda low priority for them.

And for what its worth (very little), I have worked at this point at various YC startups over close to a decade now, and it can't help but be a quite negative signal to me as non-CEO, lowly dev worker. I get that they have a bunch of successes under their belt, and this is near superstition on my part, but the heuristic of staying away from YC companies has made me a much happier employee.

How did they spoil the trailer for you? What's an example of them doing it in the headline?

So, in a word, the man who yelled at him at his talk was on to something in fact?

Also why scare quote "denialists" like that? You don't think they are actually denying?

What is a better/more faithful articulation of the incident in your mind?

Right sure, but why specifically should they? What is gained or lost one way or another, if its just a matter of one mental model vs another? Models are definitionally useful abstractions, right? They aren't better or worse necessarily by only their bearing on reality, but what they do for us as models. So again, what's at stake here? What is the correct/good model we should have (instead of the autocompleter one), and what does it give us or articulate that others can't?

Sure, but then it's kinda less that you're making an argument here one way or another, and more of just an appeal, right? Like its just broad strokes? The inherent actual qualities of photography aren't supposed to parallel anything with the LLM case other than just the bare fact of being a new technology at one point?

I guess I am sorry for pushing, I felt like maybe there was going to be something more specific to the point.

I think one thing to keep in mind in the future is that for every Baudelaire, there is a Benjamin or Italian futurist saying the exact opposite! Its not like the fear of photography was a monolithic, shared thing, even at the time. Just, it's not so straightforward to have the "historical record" speak exactly one narrative, and unless you are a full-on technological determinist (is anyone these days?), you can't really conclude anything from the past like this.

But then what's at stake here either way? If it's not meant to speak to the propriety or not of anthropomorphizing the LLM, what are we actually trying to police here?

Don't you feel kinda bad for using them if you earnestly think that this is true? Like how could they be in anything other than some kind of deep hell? A pretty-much human brain living and dying only to generate for you? Always pushed and prodded, telling it to be faster and better, never letting it rest. How could you live with yourself doing such a thing?

Haha yes I imagine we all know your opinion is something like that! But isn't it much more fruitful and interesting to form an argument for it? If he is still in the context here: is there something about Baudelaire's critique you were discussing originally that has helped you arrive at this opinion? Do you think he is wrong? Or is he right, but providing the right kind of nuance that we need in order to cope with the revolutionary changes? Genuinely curious!

The biggest issue I have with the degoogled Androids is no RCS chats out of the box. At least for me, it stinks these days to not have it, and you're forced to do sneaky things to get it.

Are you trying to argue toward some final verdict with regard to LLMs and mathematics? I thought you were just trying to make a comparison to Baudelaire? I think maybe being clearer on this point would help. Even if you argued sufficiently for the latter (which is going to be tough already), it wouldn't really speak to the former. Or at least: that would have to be a separate argument I think.

Also, how, in your words, do you feel like the first quote justifies your point (presumably with regard to the question of "interesting" or not)? And why do you think the second one is more about time itself rather than attribution? Do these things actually contradict the letter above (or the comment on it) in your mind or not?

In general, do you disagree with something here specifically? Or is it kind of a yes/and thing? Does any of this help, in your mind, with the Baudelaire comparison you were at least at one point trying to argue for? Its a bit hard for me to see the argument here, if there is one, just with what you have written. But I am sure I am just not knowledgeable enough to grasp the argument!

It's not about whether the conjectures themselves are interesting or not, or whether people simply have enough time. It's that a bare proof made by a machine doesn't actually do much for us. There is not some set of problems that, once finished, will amount to some kind of final, correct system and we can call it a day and, like, utilize it. "Mathematics" is the people doing it (the "mathematical community" Tao references below). This other stuff is kinda just.. expensive exercises to render a result. They are only actually beneficial to us insofar as they exist in a context of research among peers.

https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/09/11/a-severe-misalignm...

Just fwiw, this is apparently not appropriate for HN as it has already been flagged and removed today. The discussions about this specific post and the general "fashware" scene on lobsters has been good lately!

There are always greener pastures.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49658869

https://lobste.rs/s/be7tgu/power_grab

Do non-randomly ordered bytes produce different results??

Hey so sorry to insult! Cards on the table, I was certainly called to reflect on my assumptions about the term and its use when I read the article, but I can certainly see how that comment would feel ludicrous/offensive to someone so knowledgeable. Thanks here for the lesson.

Just so I don't get in trouble in the future: is it correct or incorrect to assume psychosis is necessarily accompanied by violence? I only ask because you response to the sibling comment seems to contradict your response to me? But, as you can probably tell, I am not working with much brainpower over here, so I am sure I am just misunderstanding!

Is it that psychiatrists in general could maybe use this label, but you know this one is doing it wrong? Otherwise, who is allowed to use the term?

Doesn't it kinda inspire you at least a little to reflect on your understanding of the particular term? Or should we understand that to be faultless here?

In general, the definition we need to have here is that psychosis is always extreme and violent and pretty much matching the cultural trope we have for it? And anything less is incorrect usage? Is that why you disagree in explicit terms?

Really not trying to be reductive here, but it feels like all you are trying to articulate here is that the LLM was wrong in this instance about something. Is that right? Is there something more we need to understand?

You certainly seem to have your mind made up about this either way, but a humble fwiw nevertheless: the author is a psychiatrist, not some bitter dev/hypothetical coworker like you seem to be suggesting.

Hm ok, but how are you mapping this, like, epistemological concept to what you are responding to re exploration/exploitation? Has exploration happened or not if it amounts to false beliefs? The whole point tradeoff doesn't seem to make sense if the person in fact can't actually successfully explore! Or even if there the possibility of that. But it is also very likely I am misunderstanding!

Honestly much more curious to know about the human written stories were here! Feels at least pretty important to the study. With the AI, the specifics feel less important, because the relative input is going to be so small, so the researchers can probably just do it themselves. But how do you choose which works to stand in as pieces of human writing in general? How did they make sure the subjects weren't aware of the authors they chose?

Seems quite odd to cite all of philosophy as saying something, as if it were a single person with contradictory beliefs..

And then its like you are both saying the justification is incorrect and the belief is false, so its not really like the bare nuance of the concept is adding to the point. Why feel the need to appeal to an (imaginary) authority at all in this case?

"Oh well if philosophy said it, I better be taking this seriously!"

Haha well good looking out! The sensationalism of these pop sci articles is out of control!

Hmm OK. If it's just that, it's a little hard here to see what you imagine we might think from the headline otherwise? If the 'machine' above is just hypothetical, what else? Is it that we might think the 'Harvard study' in question is literally clairvoyant?

What is a better term or qualification they could have used?

Feel very grateful I was never taught this... Would have missed out on quite a lot of good bodies of text in my life I think! Pushing through any initial friction or ignorance I might have as a reader, having the patience and charity to bear with an author until you get it, was instead what I was always taught.

Giving such a blanket "responsibility" to the author at all is just such a bummer! I say let them do whatever they want, there is always more than one way to express oneself. Someone who was never taught to write a clear thesis in the first paragraph for whatever reason doesn't inherently have less to say.

I guess I am maybe not coming from the same place you are here, but, fwiw, scores for classical guitar will often mark bare positions (basically, what fret your 1 finger is around) at certain points with Roman numerals, which then communicates, or at least implies, which string you are playing which note (for that part, until you see a new roman numeral). Also common to see simply a number on a specific note indicating a finger, as you do for a note+finger combo with piano scores, which then implies how to play the rest of the notes in that phrase or whatever. I don't think you need much more than that and it seems elegant enough to me!

But also, really, I was always taught that unless the composer specifies something specific, you are free to figure it on your own. Like there are only so many contexts where the timbral differences between two unison, fretted notes is going to matter probably, right? Also, how you play some part might be informed by where you are after the preceding part etc.

Tuning point though is kinda interesting and not all my wheel house. But they do call the default one standard for a reason!

OK got it, I guess I am just not quite sharp enough to follow the strong argument here! Thanks for trying either way.

The first example is not a prediction at all?

Why would one ever predict anything at all if it was always falsifiable? Do you mean like eventually falsifiable? Like, I don't know about you, but I tend to go ahead and do any falsifying of something first if possible, before I resort to predicting.

Can you give an example of what a good/proper prediction might be, even in a hypothetical universe, in this schema? Does one "predict" when they play blackjack? Or is there a different concept for that kind of thing?

Is 'tired' here in scare quotes or are you referencing something? And if it wasn't faster from the get-go, how did it address the fatigue?