MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by bicepjai | 2025-04-05 06:01:10+00:00
Claude summarize

The summary at https://ai-2027.com outlines a predictive scenario for the impact of superhuman AI by 2027. It involves two possible endings: a "slowdown" and a "race." The scenario is informed by trend extrapolations, expert feedback, and previous forecasting successes. Key points include:

- *Mid-2025*: AI agents begin to transform industries, though they are unreliable and expensive. - *Late 2025*: Companies like OpenBrain invest heavily in AI research, focusing on models that can accelerate AI development. - *Early 2026*: AI significantly speeds up AI research, leading to faster algorithmic progress. - *Mid-2026*: China intensifies its AI efforts through nationalization and resource centralization, aiming to catch up with Western advancements.

The scenario aims to spark conversation about AI's future and how to steer it positively[1].

Sources [1] ai-2027.com https://ai-2027.com [2] AI 2027 https://ai-2027.com
by mmooss | 2025-04-05 06:02:43+00:00
Maybe you're miscommunicating your emphasis. Look at you're stream of consciousness style - that's not a way to make sure you're clear. Instead of pointing the finger for the misunderstanding, just clarify it.

> Globisation ....I thought....refered to the creaping take over of "multinational" corporations consolodating whole industrys under one companys rule....locking out small businesses

That's not what it means. It means the significant, widespread reduction or elimination of national borders. As a result, a business or consumer can buy something from a supplier in Vietnam as well as from Italy or Kansas. And businesses can use multiple sources to build international supply chains.

In businesses where scale matters, it makes multinationals bigger. For example, where economies of scale exist (e.g., cars) or where network effects exist (e.g., social media).

But in other things, it empowers small businesses. A small business also can have something made by a manufacturer in Shenzen and also can sell it all over the world. If yours is the best or fills a niche, the Internet will connect you to customers.

> the possitive effects there, could be quick and profound

I don't see why that would be true. It will drive up everyone's prices, and undermine the supply chains that all businesses rely on. Fruit at the local supermarket uses international supply chains.
by colechristensen | 2025-04-05 06:04:35+00:00
Pressure to improve trade imbalances is a good idea! Particularly with China and some of these extremely low wage countries. Democrats being silent on the topic or not wanting to do anything about it is one of the bigger deciding issues for the kind of moderates who would actually change their vote between parties.

The current administration is like... if you're being charitable you can imagine at some point someone had a reasonable set of ideas that got filtered through a long string of fools in a game of telephone so now we have an angry toddler with a gun destroying the global economy on the basis of ideas which very well may have been interesting at the beginning of the chain but have long since descended into incoherence.
by photonthug | 2025-04-05 06:04:38+00:00
> Trust is not important if they are afraid of you .. Europeans seem to be much more susceptible to an "if you don't want it to be done to you don't do it to others" argument.

I've noticed this also, having spent a lot of time in both places. Some would say this is part of the American national character, and it's the darker side of hard-nosed individualistic cowboys, etc. The famous opening speech of Patton comes to mind here:

> When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. Now, I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost and laughed.

There's at least some truth to this and the mean-spirited arrogance/strength in the rest of the speech being in line with national character, I think it has to be admitted. This seems like the guy was certainly never cut out to be a diplomat or act with moderation, and maybe most Americans aren't. That said though.. maybe a deeper issue is that suffering (economic or otherwise) changes people. Makes them merely hypocrtical in the best case, aggravated and mean on average, or in the worst case positively cruel. A lot of America has not been ok for a long time now.
by ggm | 2025-04-05 06:05:33+00:00
Not wanting to critique women for how they chose to look, this feels like a valid case: willingness to body modify to a specific look, and that look appear significant.

Trump is very fond of the "nasty" hook. It seems all-pervading and his praise of women is often about their appearance and sexual energy, not the policies per se.

I don't feel much like arguing on this. Comments made light-heartedly to trout pout and buccal fat are seen as derogatory and probably are. I'd rather not feed the machine. For some women (and men) there is a marked body dismorphia tied up in internet filtering on images, and AI image generation is probably feeding it.

I think Trumps appeal to women, and the women's body types which appeal to Trump is tied up in this, but really the ideology is most of it.
by Nursie | 2025-04-05 06:06:21+00:00
I am British and have been a consultant.

While permanent IT staff are often regarded as generic office workers, usually in poorly performing small to medium enterprises in backwaters around the country, in London and in Finance this is not really the case.

Consultant IT people can make out like bandits, IR35 or no, and even those perm people in the backwaters are middle class in earning and habits. It’s absolutely not a working class occupation.

Incidentally this attitude from middle management in (mostly) non-London SMEs is a big part of why they are doomed to fail - they value middle-management above skilled workers and end up in a doom spiral of low pay, low productivity and low expectations. If you’re in one of those situations - get out, opportunity is out there. But you won’t find it in a shabby office at the back-end of an industrial estate in Basingstoke.
by hayst4ck | 2025-04-05 06:06:27+00:00
Trump is only confusing if you think his policies are meant to benefit America.

If you don't believe that, then his policies are terrifyingly not confusing. If you believe his policies are primarily meant to benefit American oligarchs or Russia, his policies are even less confusing.

Withdrawing support for Ukraine and not putting tariffs on Russia, despite putting tariffs on uninhabited "Heard Island and McDonald Islands" is probably the least confused I've been since his inauguration. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/03/donald-trump...
by jmyeet | 2025-04-05 06:06:38+00:00
Benign? Native American genocide, the transatlantic slave trade, chattel slavery, segregation, Japanese interment, suplying drug cartels with weapons and money, the havoc that's caused in virtually every Central and South American country, the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons against a foe (twice, and against civilian population centers no less), Korea, Vietnam, the Middle East, all the CIA-backed coups and regime changes, becoming the world's arms dealer, economic imperialism and almost starting World War Three (the Cuban Missile Crisis should really be called the Turkey Missile Crisis).

We also end up consistently on the wrong side: apartheid South Africa, Pinochet's Chile, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the list goes on.

Russia? We enabled the looting of Russia after the collapse of the USSR that directly created Vladimir Putin.

North Korea? This continues a long trend of simply starving countries for the hell of it, just like Iraq [1], Venezuela and Cuba.

China? What's China done exactly? I'll tell you what: it singlehandedly lifted hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty in the 20th century. Remove China from the stats and poverty grew in the 20th century. China became an economic powerhouse while having a much fairer distribution of wealth than the US has had or currently has. And they continue to build infrastructure rather than minting a few more billionaires.

[1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...
by roenxi | 2025-04-05 06:06:52+00:00
They used a 0.25 constant in a formula and the article is arguing they should have used 0.945 instead (difference of ~4x). The constant the Trump administration used seems to have been the one for estimated effect of tariffs on retail prices (ie, consumer facing) and it was more appropriate to use the one for the effect on prices at the border.

I assume that is similar to me being a computer company importing chips, a 25% tariff on microprocessors will make the imported cost of microprocessors go up by ~24% (because some really expensive ones don't get bought) but it would increase the price of the computers I build by ~5% because most of the computer isn't a microprocessor.

It is an exciting time to learn about the country of Lesotho.
by keiferski | 2025-04-05 06:08:20+00:00
There’s a weird gap in the modern world when it comes to travel, which is traveling as a group / society. In the distant past it was very common for entire societies to be nomadic. You’d have both your friends and family + movement around the globe.

On the other hand, the solo traveler is a recent phenomenon largely enabled by 20th century technology and political developments.

I know there are programs which travel the world as a group, but they tend to be very ends-focused (“startup travelers”) etc.

So, the era of time when the Earth had open, undefined spaces (“smooth space” as defined by the philosopher Deleuze) seems to be basically over forever, barring an apocalyptic event. We might have to wait for new planets to see nomadic societies existing again.
by GIFtheory | 2025-04-05 06:10:07+00:00
That’s a nice idea, but I’m skeptical—where is the new wealth coming from that will allow Lesotho to pay its workers more? It’s not an issue of strong-arming some bad guys in Lesotho to pay their workers more using tariffs as a negotiation tool.

I feel that conflating tariffs with some sort of negotiation tool to bring about positive global change is disingenuous, because the real aim is clearly protectionism.
by usr1106 | 2025-04-05 06:10:35+00:00
Citizenship is definitely not relevant. Owning a SEPA account is a precondition at most sellers, even a German SEPA account at some, although the latter has been decided unlawful by courts before.

However, another comment somewhere mentions a seller that accepts Paypal. I'm sure I have heard about others accepting credit card. They are rare, but they exist. It doesn't matter where in Germany you buy the ticket, it's always valid everywhere. Buying the smart card version at some weird place might be practically infeasible and sometimes they are not issued on the spot but after a delivery time. But for buying the app version you "just" have to do your homework. Quick, easy, and convenient, no. Possible, yes.
by mcshicks | 2025-04-05 06:11:22+00:00
I was going to say I have a old twiddler 2 (wired usb). There was this program I used to learn called "twidor" that was like a type tutor but had graphic that showed you the chords. Really helpful. I didn't see anything like that in the github repository linked in the video. I guess they are up to twiddler 4 now. I read the linked chordite page and I agree that a problem with the twiddler is you are kind of trying to hold the thing steady so you can chord with the same fingers you chording with.

https://wearables.cc.gatech.edu/projects/twidor/screens.html
by SpicyLemonZest | 2025-04-05 06:12:47+00:00
No? The tariffs aren't popular with anyone, have already produced multiple defections from his own party in Congress, and severely undercut the rationale business and financial leaders had for supporting him in 2024. His co-consul Musk, who normally spares no effort to hype up Trump's decisions, has spent the past few days carefully avoiding even indirect acknowledgement of the tariffs. It's really hard to see how this policy could possibly lead to consolidating power.
by csense | 2025-04-05 06:14:12+00:00
> As for the Rust belt. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but it’s not going to recover. There’s no chance it ever meaningfully does

> I don’t understand any of this unfounded confidence

Usually when I post about political topics here, I'm full of skepticism, devil's advocacy and cynicism. But today, I'll reveal my true colors: I'm secretly an optimist.

I really, truly believe that human progress has a generally positive trajectory. That technology will continue to progress. And such progress generally improves peoples' lives and makes a positive impact on the world.

Our society used to have things figured out. We used to have a social narrative that made sense. I truly believe that we can set up a society where success and opportunities are available to anyone who's willing to make an honest effort.

Why? Because I'm an optimist. Because we already did it.

Observing the sustained, long-term backward progress, shrugging, and saying "Well, that's just the way things are now" is something that I do not understand and do not accept. The idea that that's truly the way of things seems wrong and counterintuitive.

Both objectively so: It seems to go against the model backed by most of human history, that the trajectory of progress is generally forward.

And subjectively so: If there is truly no path forward, that set of affairs isn't just an intellectual curiosity. Living in a world where that's true is a genuinely frightening prospect.

Let me just emphasize how absurd it is. Our society solved the problem of routing good economic opportunities to most people and then one day we just stopped doing that.

The solution's so obvious it's a farce. Just go back to what we were doing before! Global trade used to be expensive, and a lack of global trade seems to be a big piece of the puzzle as to why the economy was the way it was back then. To me, making global trade expensive again seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to attempt!
by pjmlp | 2025-04-05 06:14:48+00:00
An exception that doesn't change the rule, where are the Vulkan extensions for DirectX neural shaders, and RTX kit?

As a more recent example, not feeling like enumerating all of them since DirectX 8 shader model introduction, and collaboration with NVidia where Cg became HLSL foundation.

Exactly, proprietary APIs don't have extension spaghetti like Khronos APIs, that always end up out of control, hence Vulkan 2025 roadmap plans.

Khronos got lucky that Google and Samsung decided to embrace Vulkan as the API to be on Android, Valve for their Steam Deck, and IoT displays, basically.

Everywhere else it is middleware engines that support all major 3D APIs, with WebGPU becoming also middleware outside of the browser due to the ways of Vulkan.
by foxglacier | 2025-04-05 06:16:02+00:00
Can anyone explain the reversal of positions on free trade between left and right since the 2000s? Back then, the biggest bogeyman of leftists was globalization and they would protest against free trade agreements and wanted to boycott imports from poor countries because it was exploiting workers there and taking jobs from poor people in rich countries. At the same time rightists loved free trade because it was good for economic growth everywhere. Since Trump 1 when he cancelled some trade agreements, that somehow turned upside-down and leftists since then love free trade while rightists (or at least Trump) oppose it. Trump seems to be like part of a 2000's leftist dressed up as a rightist.

I wonder if the change in leftists is just a reaction to Trump who they didn't like because of his personality. Now everybody's making economic arguments which is nothing like what the older type of leftist would do.
by adamredwoods | 2025-04-05 06:17:24+00:00
My understanding is they are saying the elasticity of the price (what can be absorbed by tariff increase) comes from the transaction in the retail market it ultimately sells to, yet the "equation" was using elasticity of the import costs.

In other words, Trump's equation thinks that import price will absorb (elasticity) the tariff's impact, but that's not true. It's passed on almost entirely (the 0.945 number, so 0.055 may be absorbed).

So it's using wrong numbers to justify the effective tariffs. IMO, I don't think Trump cares. I think the equation was a "straw-man".
by hilbert42 | 2025-04-05 06:17:25+00:00
35% — that's wishful thinking where I am. I can get 3% in a supermarket and 6% in a pharmacy. I can get H2O2 stronger than 6% but it's a major undertaking, and one is treated with suspicion and or put onto registers—like 'what the fuck do you want that dangerous stuff for?'.

"I'm coming to realize that any truly potent or powerful substance is strictly off-limits in consumer spaces."

There's no doubt about this and it's a damn pain. Outside industrial settings, chemicals that really work are becoming very difficult to get. I accept that highly concentrated (say >50%) H2O2 is dangerous and not something I want or need, and fuel grade (>70%) needs special handling thus the need for controls, but concentrations of about 20% are useful for bleaching where sodium hypochlorite is unsuitable, etc. For example, 6% H2O2 often isn't strong enough to remove foxing from documents, books, etc. so having ready access to a more concentrated solution that I could dilute to suit would be very useful.

It wasn't always like this, I'm old enough to remember when I could get most chemicals I wanted with little effort. Unfortunately, both occupational health and safety and terrorism have put the kibosh on ready availability, controls and restrictions have screwed all of us legitimate users.

Of course, restrictions covering to whom chemicals are sold haven't detrimentally affected the chemical companies one iota, in fact I'd maintain they've benefited them. They've proteced companies from potential lawsuits when users misuse chemicals and they've provided endless possibilities for them to market nigh-on-useless products to naïve consumers like the household cleaners to which you have referred. I could give examples of how some common household products have become less potent over the years but it'd take a full blog to go into details.

There's another downside here too, the less consumers know about the chemicals they use the more unskilled they become at actual chemistry—even if taught chemistry, using products whose ingredients are unknown doesn't add to their understanding. That's also a matter that I've not time to elaborate about here except to say lack of knowledge about chemicals is one of the significant reasons why society is becoming overly chemical-phobic.
by mmooss | 2025-04-05 06:17:27+00:00
Using AI systems for high-speed security actions, proactive and reactive, seems necessary but not sufficient:

I expect attackers will also use AI systems, trained on the latest in effective attacks. What about defense would make defenders' AI systems more effective than attackers'?

I think it's necessary because, if the attackers use AI systems then the defenders need to keep up.

Also, we need to be creating far more secure systems to start with. Now it is, to a degree, security through obscurity - something is secure when attackers can't find the bugs fast enough. Security through obsurity wouldn't seem to work well when the attacker uses AI software.
by thaumasiotes | 2025-04-05 06:18:09+00:00
My gut says the concern arose around the balance of gold, which would behave differently. But that really doesn't work with Bastiat's example, because there is no flow of gold (or other currency) in or out of either country.

But the fact that there is no flow of currency makes the problem look stupider. England is notionally benefiting because it has gained some wine "worth" 50 francs while losing some coal "worth" 70 francs. France is suffering because it's lost some wine worth 50 francs while gaining some coal worth 70 francs. With no francs traveling abroad, the matter is closed and France has ended up better off. What was the problem?

From this perspective, "trade deficit" appears to be synonymous with "gains from trade". (But note that the analogy falls apart immediately; England is also experiencing gains from trade, but it has a surplus instead of a deficit. The difference is driven by the artificial division of the trade into two legs, one of which happens first. If the import happens first, you get a surplus. If not, you get a deficit.)

With fiat, I think there is a concern floating around that if some foreign party absorbs a lot of our currency, and then we print more to replace the loss (so that we continue to have an appropriate amount domestically), the foreign party could suddenly crash the value of the currency by deciding to spend it. That's true. It can't be the origin of the fear of trade deficits, though, because nothing similar appears in Bastiat's example, where currency never moves. It's more analogous to the traditional fear of seeing your country's supply of gold drained away by trade.
by achierius | 2025-04-05 06:18:25+00:00
Deleuze mentioned on HN? I'll have to check my window for aerial pigs come the morning.

> when the Earth had open, undefined spaces

For physical spaces, you're correct, but it is worth noting that other spaces have appeared and thereafter made the same transition. The internet, for example, is a pretty clear-cut case of a striated system today -- it facilitates desires into tightly-controlled pathways and channels by which means value can be extracted. But in its early years, it was almost totally smooth: communities like Geocities and MySpace demonstrate this through their total stylistic incoherency. While it is of course different than actually going to a new place, it's still a rare thing -- to experience a "totally new" place, unblemished and unoccupied.

And it's not impossible for striated spaces to be deterritorialized: as Deleuze points out, this is in fact a natural tendency of striated space, and it takes active effort (e.g. by a capitalist world-system) to maintain the existing striation.
by shubhamjain | 2025-04-05 06:19:38+00:00
I’m not sure if it’s Covid or just entering my 30s, but both I and many of my friends have noticed a similar shift. We used to love the idea of traveling the world and meeting new people, and while we still do that to an extent, the excitement of backpacking around the globe and going to off-beat places isn't there anymore.

However, it doesn’t bother me. The idea of constant travel can feel a bit forced, because Western society emphasises it so much as a way to feel fulfilled. But, happiness and fulfillment exists in a thousand other things. Isaac Asimov, for example, spent most of his life in a New York apartment, writing articles, books, and letters. He loved it so much that the first thing he did after coming home from heart surgery was to rush towards his typewriter. He disliked being distracted from writing so much that he wasn't even willing to travel to Hollywood to get his novels adapted.

So, while travelling occasionally is enriching and helps me mentally, I am okay with the idea of just sitting at home and working on my projects, being excited about programming, writing, and learning.
by mitthrowaway2 | 2025-04-05 06:20:37+00:00
I'm not the author, but I do a similar driving pattern when I encounter traffic waves. Lane changes actually end up making little difference. Even when I leave a lot of space ahead of me as a buffer to close a gap, only the very most aggressive drivers tend to enter it for the purpose of gaining ground, because it doesn't help them much at all -- the cars at the leading end of that open gap are usually stopped. However, leaving these gaps does help increase fluidity for those drivers who need to change lanes in order to eg. exit the highway, which in turn reduces traffic.