MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by aspenmartin | 2026-01-26 21:14:03+00:00
All of the issue you talk about are true, and I don’t personally care about AGI it’s kind of a mishmash of a real thing and a nice package for investors but what I do care about is what has been released and what it can do

All of the issues you talk about: they aren’t solved but we’ve made amazing progress on all of them. Continual learning is a big one and labs are likely close to some POCs.

Token costs per unit performance rapidly goes down. GPT4 level perf costs you 10x less today than two years ago. This will continue to be the case as we just continually push efficiency up.

The AGI question “are we close” tbh to me these questions are just rabbit holes and bait for flame wars because no one can decide on what it means and then even if you do (e.g. super human perf on all economically viable tasks is maybe more of a solid staring point) everyone fights about the ecological validity of evals.

All I’m saying is: taking coding in a complete vacuum, we’re very very close to being at a point where it becomes so obviously beneficial and failure rates for many things fall below the critical thresholds that automating even the things people say make engineers unique (working with people to navigate ambiguous issues that they aren’t able to articulate well, making the right tradeoffs, etc) starts looking like less of a research challenge and more of an exercise in deployment
by shagie | 2026-01-26 21:14:31+00:00
One of the issues that comes up is that the "we're building a data center..." and then power in the area scales up to meet the anticipated demand.

And then the data centers scale back how much they need or decide to not build there and now the local ratepayers are on the hook for the increased capacity that the utilities built out.

The data center would be much more welcome (there are still issues) if they were to make sure that the locals aren't going to pay for unneeded power capacity.
by el_nahual | 2026-01-26 21:14:33+00:00
Lesson it took me far too long to learn about what "the best" is. Bona fides: I'm no titan of industry but I've worked with many, across many industries.

I've seen "the best." I've had what could be considered "life changing" success by most metrics (but irrelevant by SV-billionaire standards).

The lesson:

There are, in general, two groups of people you can work with. People that do what they say they are going to do, and people who don't.

People who don't do what they say they are going to do outnumber those that do by 20-1.

If you surround yourself with the first group, you're going to be ok. If you don't, most of your time and your organization's time will be spent not-doing, not-measuring, and not-advancing.

"The best" really is that simple, and the bar really is that low.

Of course, if you do what you say you're going to do, and you're incredibly smart, and you have vision, and (insert whatever you care for here) then yeah, you'll be the "best of the best"...but those things are legitimately not necessary for success.
by al_borland | 2026-01-26 21:14:48+00:00
While there is a lot of low-effort content, there is also some pretty involved stuff.

The investigation into Honey’s shenanigans[0] was investigated and presented first on YouTube (to the best of my knowledge). The fraud in Minnesota was also broken by a YouTuber who just testified to Congress[1]. There are people doing original work on there, you just have to end up in an algorithm that surfaces it… or seek it out.

In other cases people are presenting stuff I wouldn’t otherwise know about, and getting access to see it at levels I wouldn’t otherwise be able to see, like Cleo Abram’s[0] latest video about LIGO[1]. Yes, it’s a mostly entertaining overview of what’s going on, not a white paper on the equipment, but this is probably more in depth than what a science program on TV in the 80s or 90s would have been… at least on par.

There are also full class lectures, which people can access without being enrolled in a school. While YouTube isn’t the original source, it is still shared in full, not summarized or changed for entertainment purposes.

[0] https://youtu.be/vc4yL3YTwWk (part 1 of 3)

[1] https://youtu.be/vmOqH9BzKIY

[2] https://youtu.be/kr3iXUcNt2g

[3] https://www.ligo.caltech.edu/page/learn-more
by godelski | 2026-01-26 21:14:57+00:00
| In fact what I would like to see is thousands of computer scientists let loose to do whatever they want. That's what really advances the field.
- Knuth

| How do you manage genius? You don’t.
- Marvin Kelly (Director of Bell Labs)

We have thousands of examples, quotes, and clichés where dark horses completely change the field. In CS we see this over and over so much that it's a trope of any successful startup. I just wonder when we'll notice the pattern. With all the clichés like "curiosity is worth 10 IQ points".

I think, at least for the cutting edge, it's easy to understand why these tropes are true. (IIRC Kelly even discussed it) Experts already know what the problems are and are naturally drawn to fixing them. By focusing on impact or importance all you're doing is taking away time from problem solving. Taking time from allowing people to be creative. If creativity wasn't required we'd have already gotten there.

I'm often left wondering how much we waste by trying to over optimize. How much we hurt progress by trying to attach metrics to things that are unmeasurable.

Honestly, the thing I'm most excited to see from a post scarce world is how humanity changes and progresses. When we then have this freedom to explore and innovate. To let people become experts in what they want. To let experts explore the topics they want, without need for justifying their work and the stress of not being able to put food on the table.

But until then, maybe we should recognize that innovation is so difficult to measure and has so much noise that we shouldn't rely too heavily on what the conventional wisdom says. If conventional wisdom could get us all the innovation and was optimized then startups wouldn't exist as established players could just follow a clear playbook and out innovate before anyone even has a chance. It's weird that we both recognize big established players are too big and set in their ways yet we also look to them as the playbook to follow to succeed at where they fail.

I really think there's a lot of untapped potential out there. So many just waiting to be given a chance
by gruez | 2026-01-26 21:16:08+00:00
Yeah, another vote for Termux. The linux VM ends up being a bit laggy because it's actually a webview that renders a terminal, that's connected to the VM. More importantly though, the soft keyboard support is totally broken, so if you try to backspace more characters than you've typed, it won't let you. That sucks if do something like:

1. type some command, hit enter

2. hit up to edit it (because you typoed something)

3. can't backspace because the soft keyboard thinks there's nothing to delete
by mikkupikku | 2026-01-26 21:17:25+00:00
I've seen remarkably little of this when browsing youtube with my cookie (no account, but they know my preferences nonetheless.) Totally different story with a clean fresh session though.

One that slipped through, and really pissed me off because it tricked me for a few minutes, was a channel purportedly uploading videos of Richard Feynman explaining things, but the voice and scripts are completely fake. It's disclosed in small print in the description. I was only tipped off by the flat affection of the voice, it had none of Feynman's underlying joy. Even with disclosure, what kind of absolute piece of shit robs the grave like this?
by pton_xd | 2026-01-26 21:17:32+00:00
Is there a way to measure the entropy of a piece of software?

Is entropy increasing or decreasing the longer agents work on a code base? If it's decreasing, no matter how slowly, theoretically you could just say "ok, start over and write version 2 using what you've learned on version 1." And eventually, $XX million dollars and YY months of churning later, you'd get something pretty slick. And then future models would just further reduce X and Y. Right?

Maybe they just need to keep iterating.
by b450 | 2026-01-26 21:17:46+00:00
It's funny reading this take, because I went through a fancy coffee de-conversion myself about a year ago. I have a burr grinder which can produce the appropriate grind for the brewing method. I have a dedicated coffee canister with a one-way air valve for storage. Both have been relegated to storage. I buy cheap cans of pre-ground coffee and make them in the french press, which I decide is done steeping after some indifferently measured while.

This blog articulates some of the reasons well. Many people claim the "ritual" of brewing coffee correctly is calming or grounding or something. I myself realized that the rigamarole was born of a sort of neurotic desire to live up to a stupid social expectation to have the correct tastes. In fact, I like the taste of cheap coffee - thin, vaguely burnt... yum (due to nostalgia? Maybe, who cares). In fact, I often dislike the lighter roast and terroir and whatever of "good" coffee - my wife and I often joke that it tastes like vegetable soup. I take my coffee with cream anyway, which I imagine blows out the subtle tasting notes anyway. It's how I like it!

Saving money is great. Though I'm still very much afflicted by the nagging worry that the cheap stuff, not being organic, shade-grown, fair trade, etc. is brought to me by African slaves toiling in a cloud of nasty herbicides. I hope not though!
by marcosdumay | 2026-01-26 21:17:51+00:00
The problem of modern libc (newer than ~2004, I have no idea what that 1996 one is doing) isn't that old software stops working. It's that you can't compile software on your up to date desktop and have it run on your "security updates only" server. Or your clients "couple of years out of date" computers.

And that doesn't require using newer functionality.
by a456463 | 2026-01-26 21:18:37+00:00
Sounds like you have never lived next to a datacenter where one was shoved in to your infra and jacking up your electricity cost and polluting your air and water.

What if some one put a running car with the exhaust pointed into your living area without your knowledge and with nothing you can do about it? That's what these datacenters are.

Might as well deal with that as the new normal and get along with the show.
by dragonwriter | 2026-01-26 21:19:07+00:00
> Looking at net support is an odd way to look at the data.

Its a lot more useful as a single number to look at than either “support” or “oppose”, because those don't tell you how much of the excluded amount is on the other side versus undecided.

> Overall approval of Trump's immigration policy is floating around 50% +/- 5%

Overall immigration policy is a different and broader question, but, no, its not.

39% support, with 53% opposed; support hasn't been at or above 45% (the floor of your claimed 50% ± 5%) since the beginning of last summer.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trumps-immigration-approval...
by simonw | 2026-01-26 21:19:49+00:00
Claude Code for the web is kind of a persistent virtual dev environment already.

You can start a session there and chat with it to get a bunch of work done, then come back to that session a day later and the virtual filesystem is in the same state as when you left it.

I haven't figured out if this has a time limit on it - it's possible they're doing something clever with object storage such that the cost of persisting those environments is really low, see also Fly's Sprites.dev: https://fly.io/blog/design-and-implementation/
by tristor | 2026-01-26 21:19:51+00:00
I really enjoy graffiti murals, and I go out of my way to photograph them in my own city and when I travel. I will see them when I driving or walking around and stop to look for a moment and try to understand the perspective and message of the artist and take a picture if I can.

That said, I don't much like tagging, tagging is generally not art in my opinion even if you can say artist styles are used within it. Tagging is all about ego and selfishness, it's there purely for the sake of saying "I was here", as if you are the most important person in the city that you should claim to put your name on that wall.

I've met quite a few graffiti artists all over the world in my travels, and the people who tag and the people who paint murals are by and large /not/ the same people. The folks who paint murals are trying to say something, the folks who tag have nothing more to say than to try to create a monument of some kind to themselves. I don't respect taggers, I do respect muralists.
by EchoReflection | 2026-01-26 21:21:06+00:00
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-atlantic/
The Atlantic – Bias and Credibility

LEFT-CENTER BIAS
These media sources have a slight to moderate liberal bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favor liberal causes. These sources are generally trustworthy for information but may require further investigation

https://profrjstarr.com/the-psychology-of-us/the-need-to-be-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outrage_porn

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/09/768489375/how-outrage-is-hija...

https://theconversation.com/outrage-culture-is-a-big-toxic-p...
by chrisfinazzo | 2026-01-26 21:21:19+00:00
This might also explain why the first party luggage loop accessory seems to have been (unfortunately) memory-holed. I think third parties still sell them out of excess inventory, but they've been harder to come by in recent times.

My current carry-on doesn't have large enough attachment points to easily accommodate the Apple leather case's keyring, so an updated loop would have been welcome.
by CamperBob2 | 2026-01-26 21:21:27+00:00
It requires a special key, nondisclosure agreements, passage through a bank vault and, typically, an executive title. The drinks don’t flow, members don’t rub elbows with notable people and chefs aren’t filling plates with tasty bites. The only perk is knowing the secrets of the world’s most famous lubricant. And yet, for those in the know, there’s no greater privilege.

In other news, WD-40 is not a lubricant.
by theYipster | 2026-01-26 21:21:36+00:00
Update: Released first bug-fixes (v 0.1.1). Notable fixes include:

- Defaulting to SGL display-mode when enabling 3D accel for Linux VMs for better graphics performance.
- Changing display mode for existing VMs is now available in Manage
- Adding multiple VMs for the same OS is now supported
- Custom VM naming now persists.
- Renaming VMs is now supported.

Next major feature: Full PCI passthrough support, including GPU passthrough via looking-glass.
by nabbed | 2026-01-26 21:21:40+00:00
I have some sort of old flat screen TV, which I bought before there were "smart" TVs. But I don't have cable or over-the-air reception. Instead I have a Roku soundbar with Netflix, Apple TV+, and Youtube apps (plus some other apps that I don't use, like Tubi and Pluto). I haven't had cable or over-the-air reception for ~18 years.

I can't watch anything live unless Youtube is showing some live event (which it sometimes does). I could probably watch some live news using Pluto, but I never do.
by oxag3n | 2026-01-26 21:22:20+00:00
I tried vibe-coding few years back and switched to "manual" mode when I realized I don't fully understand the code. No, I did read each line of code and understood it, I understood the concepts and abstractions, but I didn't understand all nuances, even those at the top of documentation of libraries LLM used.

I tried minimalist example where it totally failed few years back, and still, ChatGPT 5 produced 2 examples for "Async counter in Rust" - using Atomics and another one using tokio::sync::Mutex. I learned it was wrong then the hard way, by trying to profile high latency. To my surprise, here's quote from Tokio Mutex documentation:

Contrary to popular belief, it is ok and often preferred to use the ordinary Mutex from the standard library in asynchronous code.

The feature that the async mutex offers over the blocking mutex is the ability to keep it locked across an .await point.
by jacquesm | 2026-01-26 21:22:29+00:00
The main reason to avoid flamewars is to protect the atmosphere on HN but you can't make the case that if the world is on fire we can just sit here and pretend it isn't happening and discuss the latest tweak to react as though it is the most important thing in the world.

I've long argued for a 'other' category as one overflow method or a homepage that is generic and subject specific pages for those that only want LLM news or Apple. I'm sure we could agree on a 10 level 'top' set with 'All' the default. That's one step closer to Reddit of course, but with the growth that HN has seen over the years you can't continue to pretend that the 'small town' measures still apply to this big city. A lot of this really is just about scale and you need to adapt to scale.
by user34283 | 2026-01-26 21:22:39+00:00
I find it hard to believe after running agents fully autonomously for a week you'd end up with something that actually compiles and at least somewhat functions.

And I'm an optimist, not one of the AI skeptics heavily present on HN.

From the post it sounds like the author would also doubt this when he talks about "glorified autocomplete and refactoring assistants".
by contrarian1234 | 2026-01-26 21:23:26+00:00
Are we supposed to structure out society so we're safer in the case that the Chinese invade and use all our institutions against us? There is a risk-benefit tradeoff to make. Crippling society and institutions in preparation for an a worst-case scenario future hypothetical is not sensible. To get things done you operate from the standpoint that the democratic government is responsive to the desires of the people. The adversarial perspective is self sabotaging
by mjr00 | 2026-01-26 21:23:27+00:00
What people take issue with is the claim that agents built a web browser "from scratch" only to find by looking deeper that they were using Servo, WGPU, Taffy, winit, and other libraries which do most of the heavy lifting.

It's like claiming "my dog filed my taxes for me!" when in reality everything was filled out in TurboTax and your dog clicked the final submit button. Technically true, but clearly disingenuous.

I'm not saying an LLM using existing libraries is a bad thing--in fact I'd consider an LLM which didn't pull in a bunch of existing libraries for the prompt "build a web browser" to be behaving incorrectly--but the CEO is misrepresenting what happened here.
by eikenberry | 2026-01-26 21:23:37+00:00
Bespoke personalized apps have been around forever in the form of shell scripts. LLMs will expand that capability to a lot more people but won’t change the basic dynamics. Just like shell scripts, LLMs will need lower level building blocks to work with. The main difference will be that the LLM ecosystem will include some libraries as well. Though, I believe, most of those libraries haven’t been written yet.
by ggambetta | 2026-01-26 21:24:47+00:00
I used ordered dithering in my ZX Spectrum raytracer (https://gabrielgambetta.com/zx-raytracer.html#fourth-iterati...). In this case it's applied to a color image, but since every 8x8-pixel block can only have one of two colors (one of these fun limitations of the Spectrum), it's effectively monochrome dithering.
by boredtofears | 2026-01-26 21:24:54+00:00
Here's an example:

I recently inherited an over decade old web project full of EOL'd libraries and OS packages that desperately needed to be modernized.

Within 3 hours I had a working test suite with 80% code coverage on core business functionality (~300 tests). Now - maybe the tests aren't the best designs given there is no way I could review that many tests in 3 hours, but I know empirically that they cover a majority of the code of the core logic. We can now incrementally upgrade the project and have at least some kind of basic check along the way.

There's no way I could have pieced together as large of a working test suite using tech of that era in even double that time.
by jl6 | 2026-01-26 21:24:58+00:00
The software part of this would be easy. People will literally write it for free, out of the sheer joy of building Free & open source software. The part the state needs to do is bootstrap a network effect that leads to people actually using it.

I guess they’ll need to employ a few engineers to add enough lines of code to rocket.chat to make it competitive with Teams levels of slowness.
by ykhli | 2026-01-26 21:25:09+00:00
Thanks for all the questions! More details on how this works:

- Each model starts with an initial optimization function for evaluating Tetris moves.

- As the game progresses, the model sees the current board state and updates its algorithm—adapting its strategy based on how the game is evolving.

- The model continuously refines its optimizer. It decides when it needs to re-evaluate and when it should implement the next optimization function

- The model generates updated code, executes it to score all placements, and picks the best move.

- The reason I reframed this problem to a coding problem is Tetris is an optimization game in nature. At first I did try asking LLMs where to place each piece at every turn but models are just terrible at visual reasoning. What LLMs great at though is coding.
by erxam | 2026-01-26 21:25:20+00:00
700 was an exaggeration for dramatic effect, but 50 built in one year is still an astounding number.

> Do what China is doing

The massive build-up they have is mostly renewables. Surely, you see the problems with that, right? Georgia is a red state, so it's political suicide to even hint at proposing that. Don't even mention nuclear, Vogtle took three thousand years to get somewhere.

There's also the very important question of what benefit it will bring to the people living (and voting) nearby. A datacenter isn't exactly a massive job centre. I very much doubt they pay any significant taxes. The utilities companies get a fat paycheck and that's about it.
by zmmmmm | 2026-01-26 21:25:24+00:00
My experience with using AI tools for code review is that they do find critical bugs (from my retrospective analysis, maybe 80% of the time), but the signal to noise ratio is poor. It's really hard to get it not to tell you 20 highly speculative reasons why the code is problematic along with the one critical error. And in almost all cases, sufficient human attention would also have identified the critical bug - so human attention is the primary bottleneck here. Thus poor signal to noise ratio isn't a side issue, it's one of the core issues.

As a result, I'm mostly using this selectively so far, and I wouldn't want it turned on by default for every PR.
by titanomachy | 2026-01-26 21:25:40+00:00
Thanks for writing this. As an IC, I read this more from a perspective of "how can I be better at my job and derive more satisfaction from work".

Personally, I think my biggest gaps are around "hunger" and "agency"... I have these things at times, sporadically, but I have difficulty sustaining them long enough to become a really high performer at most jobs. Eventually I get kind of burnt out and stop really giving my all, then transition to something else within a year or so.

I have a high-pedigree CV, so people generally want to hire me, but I often don't live up to their expectations because of this.

Any tips on how to cultivate these traits?