MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by AnthonyMouse | 2025-12-30 00:34:27+00:00
> Which means there's less workers being paid, less taxes, less money to be spent on the economy, which means less money to pay workers, which means... the logical conclusion is "no economy at all".

Except that's not how the economy works.

Suppose you automate web development. Fewer people get paid for that anymore. Does it increase long-term unemployment? Not really, because it creates surplus. Now everybody else has a little extra money they didn't have to spend on web development, and they'll want to buy something with it, so you get new jobs making whatever it is they want to spend the money on instead.

The only way this actually breaks down is if people stop having anything more they want to buy. But that a) seems pretty unlikely and b) implies that we've now fully automated the production of necessities, because otherwise there would be jobs providing healthcare, growing food, building houses, etc.
by danparsonson | 2025-12-30 00:34:35+00:00
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean.

You seem to say it's not worth writing a lot of tests, but then you talk about tests breaking due to bad changes - if you don't write those tests in the first place, then how do you get into that situation?

I didn't word my earlier comment very well - I don't mean to advocate for 100% coverage, which I personally think is a waste of time at best, and a false comfort at worst. Is this what you're talking about? What I wanted to say is that unit tests should be written for every part of the code that you're testing, i.e. break it into bits rather than test the whole thing in one lump, or better, do both - unit tests and integration tests.
by onraglanroad | 2025-12-30 00:34:37+00:00
> If companies can't own companies, then instead I have to directly transfer ownership over the subsidiary to the shareholders of the primary company.

That sounds fine to me. They're different companies. Why shouldn't I be able to sell my shares in Amazon UK while keeping them in Amazon France?

Or countries could come to some agreement on cross country companies.

Your last paragraph is pretty meaninglessness. In all those circumstances two companies just become one.
by aleph_minus_one | 2025-12-30 00:35:59+00:00
> It’s watching the profession collectively decide that the solution to uncertainty is to pile abstraction on top of abstraction until no one can explain what’s actually happening anymore.

No profession collectively made such a decision. Programming was always very splitted into many, many subcultures with their own (mutually incompatible over the whole profession) ideas what makes a good program.

So, I guess rather some programmers inside some part of a Silicon Valley echo chamber in which you also live made such a decision.
by DrSiemer | 2025-12-30 00:36:05+00:00
So "Corporate profit taxes are a game of hide-and-seek", but "you can tax the value flow, the revenue generated in-country, or the massive energy consumption of the data centers"?

The author acts as if taxes are not a completely fluid system, that will quickly adept to ensure revenue keeps flowing, squeezing wherever the squeezing is the juiciest. It does not need cautious calibration.
by frio | 2025-12-30 00:36:57+00:00
Yeah, this is something I'd like more of outside of Agentic environments; in particular for working in parallel on multiple topics when there are long-running tasks to deal with (eg. running slow tests or a bisect against a checked out branch -- leaving that in worktree 1 while writing new code in worktree 2).

I use devenv.sh to give me quick setup of individual environments, but I'm spending a bit of my break trying to extend that (and its processes) to easily run inside containers that I can attach Zed/VSCode remoting to.

It strikes me that (as the article points out) this would also be useful for using Agents a bit more safely, but as a regular old human it'd also be useful.
by AndyNemmity | 2025-12-30 00:37:29+00:00
That's completely fair, I also don't have much faith in that anymore. Very often, the people who make those claims have the most basic implementation that barely is one.

I'm not sure if the problems you run into with using LLMs will be solved if you do it my way. My problems are solved doing it my way. If I heard more about your problems, I would have a specific answer to them.

These are the solutions to where I have run into issues.

For sure, but my solutions are not feed the error back into the LLM. My solutions are varied, but as the blog shows, they are move as much as possible into scripts, and deterministic solutions, and keep the LLM to the smallest possible scope.

The current state of things is extremely useful for a subset of things. That subset of things feels small to me. But it may be every thing a certain person wants to do exists in that subset of things.

It just depends. We're all doing radically different things, and trying very different things.

I certainly understand and appreciate your perspective.
by satvikpendem | 2025-12-30 00:37:38+00:00
But people don't want to read something they can tell is AI, and thus you lose more authority and respect from your readers. If you are interested in getting your words out, and presumably you are as otherwise this wouldn't be a public article, the use of AI does in fact hurt that goal, ironic.

Finally, I will link this, about how "it's insulting to read your AI generated article:" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45722069
by maxlybbert | 2025-12-30 00:37:47+00:00
Economists often talk about substituting capital for labor. It's certainly common in countries, such as the US, where labor is relatively expensive.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to change the tax system to make sure there's no tax advantage to substituting capital for labor, or for that matter, labor for capital. I have no idea what changes would be needed, but there's no reason that using AI should have significant tax implications.
by andersa | 2025-12-30 00:38:06+00:00
You've not met a real hater if you think this, and should consider yourself very lucky. That was just a frustrated user.

A real hater will obsessively use your product, yet simultaneously attempt to find any reason whatsoever to hate your product (or you), no matter how small, and be extremely vocal about it, to the point of founding new communities centered on complaining about you. Should you address the issue, they will silently drop that one from their regularly posted complaints and find or invent a new one. Any communication you send to them will be purposefully misinterpreted and combined with half truths and turned against you.

Some of these people probably have genuine mental illnesses that makes them act like this.
by esseph | 2025-12-30 00:39:16+00:00
When people say "search is dead", I feel like you and I live on different planets.

If I have a Google idea of what I want, Google search works great. On the rare occasion I don't know the specific thing I'm looking for, Gemini points the way.

It had never ever been easier for me to find what I'm looking for on the internet, since 1993-1994.
by AndyNemmity | 2025-12-30 00:41:01+00:00
I tend to agree with you, however compacting has gotten much worse.

So... it's tough. I think memory abstractions are generally a mistake, and generally not needed, however I also think that compacting has gotten so wrong recently that they are also required until Claude Code releases a version with improved compacting.

But I don't do memory abstraction like this at all. I use skills to manage plans, and the plans are the memory abstraction.

But that is more than memory. That is also about having a detailed set of things that must occur.
by brynary | 2025-12-30 00:43:22+00:00
We're at 100k LOC between the tests and code so far, running in about 500-600ms. We have a few CPU intensive tests (e.g. cryptography) which I recently moved over to the integration test suite.

With no contention for shared resources and no async/IO, it just function calls running on Bun (JavaScriptCore) which measures function calling latency in nanoseconds. I haven't measured this myself, but the internet seems to suggest JavaScriptCore function calls can run in 2 to 5 nanoseconds.

On a computer with 10 cores, fully concurrent, that would imply 10 billion nanoseconds of CPU time in one wall clock second. At 5 nanoseconds per function call, that would imply a theoretical maximum of 2 billion function calls per second.

Real world is not going to be anywhere close to that performance, but where is the time going otherwise?
by jaggederest | 2025-12-30 00:43:48+00:00
Just to be clear, this particular user didn't ever become a fountain of sweetness and light - they were pretty touchy and cranky at the best of times, if I remember right (it's been over a decade), but accepting them as they were let them become a contributor instead of toxic.

Honestly I have thick enough skin that I'm happy to let them be themselves as long as we can reach a basis of professionalism and get a positive result.

You're right that there are many people you can't reach, and trying is a waste of effort, but I think an appreciation for human dignity requires me to at least make the attempt, and sometimes you're rewarded.
by teleforce | 2025-12-30 00:43:52+00:00
This whole things of AI assisted and vibe coding phenomena including the other comments remind me of this very popular post on HN that keep appearing almost every year on HN [1],[2].

[1] Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice:

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/10/28/dont-call-yourself-a-pr...

[2] Don't Call Yourself A Programmer, And Other Career Advice (2011):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34095775
by kmeisthax | 2025-12-30 00:44:56+00:00
These statements are meaningless without considering who is being targeted by these rules. For context, Germany has a long-standing constitutional ban on Nazis. This isn't anything new; what is new is that one party (the AfD) is trying to find ways around the ban.

If you're arguing that the AfD aren't Nazis, I'm not sure I agree. They're already privately talking about deporting German citizens.

If you are arguing that banning a political party[0] is inherently wrong... sure. I'll agree with you, with one caveat. How do you meaningfully stop people from doing that? Just saying "Well, that would be illegal, so just disobey the illegal order" is not good enough. That's what you do for otherwise normal politicians that fuck up drafting the law[1]. But the people who are doing this shit are malicious. They need to be removed from power or they will just keep trying until they get their way. And that effectively means banning the political party trying to ban everyone else. Only a stand user can beat another stand user. Hence, the constitutional ban on Nazis.

[0] I should not have to explain to people that the Nazis banned other political parties.

[1] see also, the US 1st Amendment, which prohibits laws that restrict speech without specifying any meaningful punishment for politicians that attempt to restrict speech.
by gardenhedge | 2025-12-30 00:44:57+00:00
> Be lonely and without any kind of company and human connection my entire life

You may be lonely now, but you will have some different stages in life where friendship and companionship may appear.

First - when you start working you will join a team of some sorts. Just be yourself and and make sure you attend all the team nights out.

Second - traveling. You can join tour groups and visit some cool places. Don't do this to specifically find friends but you will be part of a group and have companionship for a brief period.

Thirdly - dating. You will be able to find a partner. This is most peoples main companion in life.

Fourthly - you could join a non-work team where you can have social interactions. I can't give too much advice on this one because I am not on a team like this.

Fifthly - find a co-founder and start a company
by TacticalCoder | 2025-12-30 00:45:30+00:00
Google search ain't dead at all: it became so good something silly like 99% of all the queries have to be answered by the Google AI before the very first "result". And for those who want more, there's the "continue this discussion with Gemini".

Now this may not be great for Google Ads (dunno about that) but Google search now works better than it ever did.
by AndyNemmity | 2025-12-30 00:45:51+00:00
I wish that were true. Models don't feel like they've really had massive leaps.

They do get better, but not enough to change any of the configuration I have.

But you are correct, there is a real possibility that the time invested with be obsolete at some point.

For sure the work towards MCPs are basically obsolete via skills. These things happen.
by dang | 2025-12-30 00:46:10+00:00
This is a fine submission, but if you want to say what you think is important about an article, please do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

(Submitted title was "50,000 drums of radioactive wastes were dumped near the Farallones, 1946 to 1970")
by danparsonson | 2025-12-30 00:46:13+00:00
Yeah I think that's a question of using the right tool for the job. Some projects are of a size that it's not really necessary to be more fine-grained, but as the number of moving parts increases, so too in my experience does the need to ensure those parts are individually working to spec, and not just the whole thing. A classic example might be something like a calculator that enshrines a complex piece of logic, and a piece of code that uses it. I would test both of those in isolation, and mock out the calculator in the second case so that I could generate a whole range of different return values and errors and prove that the calling code is also robust and behaves correctly. Separating them like this also potentially reduces the number of tests you need to write to ensure that you hit all possible combinations of inputs and outputs.
by fooker | 2025-12-30 00:46:26+00:00
The alternative has been the government controlling which ventures are funded, at which point the government assumes the risk.

Would you rather the only entity with a monopoly on violence be liable for all risky ventures? What happens when the government has a very different ideology and goals than what you support?

Again, there is a reason the status quo of private capital doing risky business with limited liability tends to work better.

You don’t have to like it.
by patrickdavey | 2025-12-30 00:46:47+00:00
well, lets take that as true (no more humans doing accounting). Doesn't that mean that there'll be a knowledge gap there? What happens when new rules come along (laws change all the time which will affect accounting practices). How will an AI (at least the current batch) learn what needs to change when there's no prior art for it to lean on?

I mean sure, if we ever get AGI then all bets are off, but, as far as I know we're not there, and LLMs are unlikely to evolve into AGI. They're not thinking right? It doesn't actually _understand_ anything right? I mean, I'm quite probably wrong here, but, as far as I can tell it's really just very fancy backwards autocomplete.
by PaulHoule | 2025-12-30 00:46:54+00:00
It’s a little shocking to me that this sentiment hasn’t floated higher in the discussion. Regardless of how he feels, this is the way he wants you to feel.

Big picture it’s about emotional intelligence and if you are losing your shit you’re going to flail around. I think you should pick up some near-frontier tools and use them to improve your usual process, always keeping your feet on the ground. “Vive coding” was always about getting you and keeping you over your head. Resist it!
by palmotea | 2025-12-30 00:46:58+00:00
> Don’t forget Sam Altman publicly said they have no idea how to make money, and their brilliant plan is to develop AGI (which they don’t know how and aren’t close to) then ask it how to generate revenue.

If you've got AGI, it should be pretty easy to generate revenue in the short term: competent employee replacements at a fraction of the cost of a real person, with no rights or worker protections to speak of. The Fortune 500 would gobble it up.

Then you've got a couple years to amass trillions and buy up the assets you need to establish a self-sustaining empire (energy, raw materials, manufacturing).
by newyankee | 2025-12-30 00:47:39+00:00
I think they can probably win the energy storage game when scaled. I know the voltage range is a serious issue but I am guessing CATL itself might want to divert LFP/ LMFP chemistries to vehicles and use this for energy storage.

People are probably oversimplifying some costs (like 10-20$/kwh material costs) while at the same time underestimating the fact that if it can be delivered internationally at < 60$/kwh in the long run, it is a win for energy storage.

For some reasons I have never seen LFP in storage projects going below 200-300$/kwh all costs considered even though cell/pack costs claim in China have always been 50-60$/kwh
by ridgeguy | 2025-12-30 00:48:18+00:00
Hubel & Wiesel's work is fascinating, but may not map well to more complex systems (not dissing cats, they're plenty complicated!).

For example, humans clearly have a window for learning their native language. It just happens, and it's nearly magical. But humans can learn non-native languages after that window slams shut. We vary in our ability to do that, but if it matters, most can pick up useful conversational and reading skills.

I agree it's a matter of research. I think we've barely begun to scratch the surface of what's possible.
by saddlepaddle | 2025-12-30 00:48:35+00:00
Hmm probably out of scope unfortunately as it's a pretty high maintenance burden to support (hg share is not 1:1 with git worktrees), it's possible our sandbox offering may work out-of-box for hg as we'll probably just clone your repo -> an ai agent will take it from there! We'll have to see but no promises
Show HN: SAFi, a Governance Engine for LLMs
by jnamaya | 2025-12-30 00:48:59+00:00
I’ve spent the last year building SAFi, an open-source cognitive architecture that wraps around AI models (GPT, Claude, etc.) to enforce alignment with human values.
Safi is a "System 2" architecture inspired by classical philosophy. It separates the generation from the decision:

The Intellect: proposes a draft.

The Will: decides to block or approve the drafts.

The Conscience: audits the drafts based on set core values

The Spirit: An EMA (Exponential Moving Average) vector that tracks "Ethical Drift" over time and injects course-correction into the context window.

Feedback is welcome!
by iamnothere | 2025-12-30 00:49:18+00:00
This is the norm throughout history and will continue to be the norm in democracies with free speech. You should read more about partisan papers in the time of yellow journalism, or town hall meetings before the radio era.

People are often obnoxious, irrational, absurd, and they may even flat out lie. Shocking! Advocating for this mess to be kept from view is advocating for further obscuring the reality of the situation.

I grew up in a time when the TV only presented a polished, curated, “civilized” view of the world. It’s why most Americans didn’t know anything about US interventions in Latin America, about the effects of offshoring and trade liberalization, and about the false justifications for the Iraq War. (Yet even in the late 20th century, conspiracy talk was rampant—it’s not a new phenomenon nor was it created by the internet.)
by anonnon | 2025-12-30 00:49:26+00:00
> FSD to Tesla, which he also did not finish.

That's why I've never understood HN's continuing infatuation with him. He failed to deliver FSD to Tesla, and arguably even sent them down a R&D dead end, and he doesn't seem to have played a significant role in the generative AI revolution, only joining OpenAI after they developed ChatGPT. Yet when his talks or blog posts get posted here, they're met with almost uniformly positive comments, often many.

He reminds me of Sam Altman, where for a while, pointing out that pg's emperor was naked, that his first big "success" was a startup, Loopt, that devolved into a seedy, gaunt gay hookup app, slowly wasting away, that only got acquired thanks to face-saving VC string-pulling, and that that "success" was the springboard of all that followed (YC presidency, feeling out a gubernatorial campaign, OpenAI CEO)--that would get you swiftly flagged.
by BhavdeepSethi | 2025-12-30 00:49:57+00:00
Most of the folks that are talking about this are the ones who work independently and work on greenfield projects (especially tooling related). The cost of making a mistake there is so low. I've used it similarly and it's absolutely amazing. Though I still use a mix of agents and code myself in my regular 9-5 job.

I've yet to see examples of folks using this in a team of 4+ folks working together in a production env with users, and just using AI for their regular development.

Claude code creator only using claude code doesn't count. That's more like dog-fooding.
by bendangelo | 2025-12-30 00:51:33+00:00
When the Nintendo Switch became hackable, ie can play any game, Nintendo saw a massive decrease in sales in Spain. Btw people in Spain pirate the most games in Europe. The decrease was at least 40%. The idea that this is a service issue and piracy doesn’t affect sales is just PR speak. If the game is offline, it’ll be pirated a lot.
by robomartin | 2025-12-30 00:51:50+00:00
Yeah, televisions come full of truly destructive settings. I think part of the genesis of this virus is the need for TV's to stand out at the store. Brands and models are displayed side-by-side. The only way to stand out is to push the limits of over-enhancement along every possible axis (resolution, color, motion, etc.).

Since consumers are not trained to critically discern image and video quality, the "Wow!" often wins the sale. This easily explains the existence of local dimming solutions (now called miniLED or some other thing). In a super bright Best Buy or Walmart viewing environment they can look fantastic (although, if you know what to look for you can see the issues). When you get that same TV home and watch a movie in the dark...oh man, the halos jump off the screen. Now they are starting to push "RGB miniLED" as if that is going to fix basic optics/physics issues.

And don't get me started on horrible implementations of HDR.

This is clearly a case of the average consumer not knowing enough (they should not have to be experts, BTW) and effectively getting duped by marketing.
by downrightmike | 2025-12-30 00:53:30+00:00
In 1983, the tax base was 90%, today 80%. To lose 30% of 80% is only a 24% decrease. at 80%, SS is insolvent in 2053, at 56%? certainly insolvent sooner, but all we need to do is increase the taxable maximum and the Rich will be brought into the tax paying population again. Solving the problem.

Do these companies seriously not see a MASSIVE AI tax coming? Gov't wants its money, doesn't matter if its clean or not, as long as it gets its cut.
by embedding-shape | 2025-12-30 00:53:42+00:00
> Having a government-insured bank deposit means that I've never had to think about this in my lifetime

I think "in my lifetime" is the key here. Probably banks weren't as foolproof initially as they are today, and was a bit wild west too in the beginning.

With that said, I do think cryptocurrencies are still in a "exploring" phase and it's been way oversold on what it could help solve, especially by people who are looking to make a quick buck. Which is a shame, because the technology itself does have useful applications.