Hacker News Reader

overgardon Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

I'm sure it's useful for that, but we've had pretty good decompilers before AI.

overgardon Sycophantic AI Decreases Prosocial Intentions and Promotes Dependence (2025)

Yeah, a lot of it isn't even really about people's choice though. Like, I have so many click-baity things in my YouTube feed even though I ignore almost all of it, because just one click and suddenly that's a thing it's going to show me 10x. I wish there was a place I could go for tech news that just didn't talk about AI. I'm so over it.

overgardon Antigravity 2.0

It's kind of bizarre in that it's not like this is an optimal interface, either. I mean, it's fine, but why not try something different?

I also don't really get why TUI's have become such a big deal, other than maybe nerd bait. The only time I want a TUI is when I'm SSH'd into a machine, which isn't very often? TUI's have so many downsides. Selecting text is inconsistent, copy paste is inconsistent, mouse behaviors.. it's all kind of jagged.

overgardon I'm Scared a Stranger Will Call My Novel AI, So I Built GitHub for Words

It's not just other creatives that care, it's consumers. There's a lot of backlash on steam against games that contain AI content. Personally, while I think GenAI has a place, I think this backlash is good. People have gotten way out ahead of their ski's and have gone way too hard on quantity instead of quality. If you use ChatGPT to do research for your book? Great. I bet it's better for it. Did you use ChatGPT to write your book? I have zero interest in reading it. It's a strong signal that no work was put into writing it so I should invest no work in reading it.

overgardon Waymo in Dallas

"Trust" isn't just about "% of a chance I die". It's like "can this system actually function well in the environment I'm in". For instance, I live in the midwest. Our roads are AWFUL compared to most coastal areas, the weather can get really extreme (-20 in the winters), there are things like invisible black ice which is a huge hazard, people drive giant brodozers, etc. If I'm in a taxi or an uber or something, I trust that the driver can adapt to these conditions. I do not trust that a Waymo can. I'm not saying that's a "never" thing, but it is a big deal.

overgardon Waymo in Dallas

Personally, I would fight hard against that kind of outcome. While I don't mind self driving cars on the road if they drive safely, being able to own and operate a vehicle is a huge deal for personal freedom. Part of why I refuse to own a Tesla is because I don't want a vehicle that's subordinate to big tech above my own wishes. (I even still drive a stick shift and my car is essentially air gapped)

overgardon Intelligence Is Not the Main Bottleneck

It's kind of fascinating how toxic the EA/LessWrong/Rationalist stuff has become. I remember reading it back in the early days (~2010 or so) and finding a lot of good ideas mixed in with some dorkiness (Harry Potter fan fiction about rationalism..). It always seemed like a sort of harmless niche with some good ideas and some wacky ones. And yet now it's basically become a cultish religion for the ultrapowerful who use it to justify doing some really awful things.

overgardon The "Disability Dongle": Why Silicon Valley Hates Me and You

The real problem IMO is for most SV companies, the audience is the investors and the press, not the actual customer. Which I guess kind of makes sense structurally -- if the idea is to grow fast and exit, then you gotta know who butters your bread, but I think it's bad structurally for problem solving and building sustainable businesses. I know in the past "small" businesses got kind of denigrated as "lifestyle" businesses, but I think we structurally need more funding around things that solve real problems but aren't going to "CHANGE EVERYTHING!!!" and maybe only end up worth a few tens of millions instead of billions or trillions.

overgardon Changes at Google DeepMind: Demis Hassabis from CEO to Chair, Jeff Dean departs

I think something that doesn't get talked about a lot is how bad most large tech companies are at creating new products, in general. Like, if you look at most big tech companies, they have their core offering that got them to be really large and rich, and a few other products that are somewhat successful, and then a really long tail of markets they try to enter and failed at, or projects that were modestly successful but got killed because they weren't game changers (RIP Google Reader). Most of the time when a large company does something new that succeeds, it's via an acquisition of a smaller company (ie, Google with Android or Meta with Instagram and Whatsapp)

It's funny, because I think the company that's going to be best positioned coming out of this bubble is in fact google, because they have the expertise and the capital. But I honestly can't tell you right now what their AI product even is -- I've seen so many things go into the graveyard a few months after its launched that I'm utterly confused what their offering even is at this point.

overgardon Cloudflare OS: an open platform for agents, apps, and work

I'm mostly going off the tweet, it could be I just don't understand, but how do you managed shared data if everyone has their own copy of the code and they can add whatever features they want? I mean, I'm assuming that any sort of significant feature requires some sort of change to the data model, and even with a schema-less database you could have conflicts if two things use the same field name, for instance? Also what happens with updates? Like, part of IT is keeping people up to date, but if everyone has their own bespoke customizations how do you not clobber those?

Also the security story doesn't completely add up to me. Like, if I'm a user and I can just add features that I want, what's to stop me from placing data in there that's maybe covered under HIPPA or some other sensitive data (protected class, or even just stuff like authentication information)? Right now a small number of people need to think about data security, but this seems like it'd extend it to anyone? That kind of data, it's not just about "keeping it internal by default", there are a lot of rules around storing it at all.

I dunno, it kind of makes me think of when people suggest forking an open source project if the maintainers won't accept a suggestion. Sure, you can do that, and it does happen, but you're also basically signing up to maintain it for decades. I'm not sure if anyone wants to maintain Alice in accounting's very weird spreadsheet app 10 years after she's left the company?

(Again I'm not throwing shade, just trying to understand better)

overgardon Waymo in Dallas

I don't think you can just look at the statistics though. What I mean is that, the main issue is that the category of mistakes they make are going to be inherently different from the category of mistakes that humans make. IE, humans are more likely to make emotional mistakes, but self driving is probably more likely to make perceptual mistakes or fail to respond to novel situations. I think the "fail to respond to novel situations" is probably the biggest blocker for people to trust them enough for widespread deployment. I'd love to see one of these things drive on a poorly mapped dirt road up in the mountains, for instance (I'm not saying it can't -- I just mean I would personally love to see how it can adapt to that kind of situation)

overgardon Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

Funnier when you consider what Loopt amounted to.

overgardon Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

God, I still cringe every time I see that.

overgardon Apple says more ex-employees may have taken confidential data to OpenAI

> Apple is cutthroat in business too.

Sure. Also, don't care. Lets focus on the devil currently doing harm.

overgardon Haters (2020)

I think the biggest problem we have right now is our billionaires essentially live in a completely different society from the rest of us. Some of these guys are building doomsday bunkers! From their perspective, if things get really really bad, they'll just use their infinite money glitch to go somewhere safe.

The problem is these guys lack "skin in the game". They make decisions that affect people that they never even hear from or speak to -- on purpose. They don't want to speak to the commoners. Like Paul Graham, apparently, they think we're losers because we didn't chase money.

IMO, things don't get better until we abolish citizens united and invoke some pretty hefty progressive taxes. There's absolutely no societal value to allowing someone to become a trillionaire, or even a centi-billionaire. Thats way too much power for a very disconnected group of people to have.

overgardon Haters (2020)

You can be careless in a way where it's obvious you'll cause harm, but you just don't do anything about it because you don't care. Drunk driving for instance. SV is the equivalent of a societal drunk driver right now because our normal institutions for regulating these things have been captured mostly by financial interests and corruption. The harm might not be the goal, but SV is not going to do anything to prevent it when it comes to their products (Read "Careless People", as a great example). SV's big projects right now are things that harm almost everyone (surveillance state, data centers, education, massive financial bubble, job losses, AI that's "more dangerous than nuclear weapons but we can't figure out how to build a sandbox".) Most these guys do not give a shit about what they're doing to society, until we start shaming them for their recklessness or even better start voting and enacting policies to stop the bullshit. I will happily own the title hater for saying that.

overgardon Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

I think his predictions for 2025 were pretty accurate:

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/six-or-seven-predictions-f...

overgardon Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

And yet Sora folded because it's way too expensive to run a service like that.

A lot of his predictions have held up very well.

overgardon Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

That's just not true, at all.

overgardon Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

Mate, if you don't like Gary Marcus that's your call, but you're completely just lying when you talk about his qualifications. He is not "just" a psychologist, he's done a lot of AI research and even started AI companies that were acquired. This is absolutely a person with the credentials to speak on this subject, and honestly all his takes I've read have probably been TOO nice to AI companies.

overgardon Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

> other people are getting carried away with the result

That is the intended purpose of hype.

He's polite, but he's basically saying there's potentially a lot of smoke and mirrors. I agree.

overgardon Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

Nobody is saying it doesn't have an impact. What we're saying is the near-religious fervor isn't warranted. AI boosters always speak in the future tense, which is extremely telling because we have right now is basically "ok" not earth shattering.

overgardon Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

That's a lot of ad hominem with no actual explanation attached.

I don't agree with this idea of "creeping goalposts". Here's the pattern I see:

1. Labs make a press release, cherry picking results and using very careful wording to inflate the work

2. Boosters read the headlines uncritically, and uncritically promote the work for free (I hope.. I'm sure a couple are sponsored) and view it as "proof" and demand that the skeptics stop being skeptical.

3. As the hype dies, the smart skeptics point out all the holes, but by that point everyone has moved on. It takes more work to refute misinformation than it does to spread it.

The other thing: Why do boosters care about skeptics being skeptics? Like literally, if this thing is so fucking magical, why do you care if people like me take all these press releases with a large rock of salt? If I'm a dinosaur so be it, the skeptics are harmless, but the people propping up a bubble that's going to have terrifying repercussions on everyone while not holding the media's feet to the fire to challenge these people are going to look like what they are: sycophants.

overgardon Haters (2020)

People get brushed off as being haters when they point out that a lot of SV is morally bankrupt. It has nothing to do with "achievement" to point out that a lot of the people running the show are people that intend a lot of harm outside their class through either carelessness or active malice. IE, I didn't hate Sam Altman or Dario Amodei until they started doom trolling and selling ridiculous fantasies non-stop. I don't hate them because they're successful -- I don't even view them as successful -- I hate them because they take actions that are detrimental for me and the rest of society. I would hate them a lot less if they stopped taking such actions.

Paul Graham, man, the whole reason I'm even on this site was because I was a fan of his essays back in the day. But I think he's too connected to this world to see how shady it is.

overgardon Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/openais-amazing-but-vastly...

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/two-critical-updates-re-as...

As always, PR hype. Goalposts have not moved.

Guys, please use critical thinking. The haters don't hate by default, we hate because we're gaslit about this stuff every day and it's annoying. Extraordinary claims require proof, and they're not giving us information that would be essential to knowing if this is actually significant or not.

overgardon Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

It can be annoying when someone you disagree with is frequently right!

overgardon Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science

Gary Marcus' has a good take on this:

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/openais-amazing-but-vastly...

https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/two-critical-updates-re-as...

Not that there isn't something interesting in here, but lets be clear that we don't have enough information to evaluate this properly. And as always with these labs, BS takes a lot more energy to refute than it does to spread.

overgardon Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

The way I see it their fundamental business model is not something we should tolerate. This is basically just stalking with a lot of money put behind it and barely any legal accountability. This is just not a thing we should tolerate in a free society.

overgardon Flock's CEO Faced Me After Its Cameras Led to My Wrongful Stop

This is such an evil company; they should be regulated out of existence.

overgardon Karpathy’s Pelican

Oh god, please leave video games alone, we have enough slop.