MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by scraper02 | 2026-01-27 22:27:10+00:00
I’ve been experimenting with moving beyond simple autoregressive generation and static CoT. I wanted to see if we could treat the latent space of an LLM as a dynamic environment where "granular agents" evolve and compose concepts in real-time.

The result is ZODIAC, a framework for inference-time compute scaling on frozen backbones (currently testing with Llama-3.2-1B).

The Core Concept: Instead of a single prompt, you feed the model a set of "compositional keywords" (e.g., ["ethereal", "cybernetic", "obsidian"]). These are fused into a seed embedding for a batch of parallel agents.

During the forward pass, these agents undergo a Recursive Folding process where they are steered by 12 orthogonal mathematical objective functions—the Zodiac Anchors. These anchors aren't text prompts; they are differentiable reward functions that force the latent state to undergo specific geometric transformations:

Aries: Maximize instantaneous velocity (initiation).

Virgo: Minimize VQ-VAE reconstruction error (precision/compression).

Scorpio: Maximize orthogonality to the history (finding hidden latent variables).

Pisces: Maximize KL divergence toward Gaussian noise (dissolution/dreaming).

How it works: We use a deterministic rotatory schedule so that agents cycle through these objectives across episodes. We then use Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO) to update the agents' "skills" (learnable adapters) and "state" (adjective vectors) on the fly.

Essentially, it’s a differentiable inference loop where the model performs test-time training to figure out how to satisfy these structural constraints before the final token is even sampled.

I'm currently working on a multimodal head that projects these agent states directly into Stable Diffusion latents so the "world" can output text and images simultaneously from the same granular agents.
by teiferer | 2026-01-27 22:28:05+00:00
> I've been a FOSS guy my entire adult life, I wouldn't put my name to something that would enable the kinds of issues you describe.

Until you get acquired, receive a golden parachute and use it when realizing that the new direction does not align with your views anymore.

But, granted, if all you do is FOSS then you will anyway have a hard time keeping evil actors from using your tech for evil things. Might as well get some money out of it, if they actually dump money on you.
by 8note | 2026-01-27 22:28:54+00:00
ralphs is good at letting things complete, but is far from "making commercial software for $10"

just the initial coding first requires you to actually define what the output is

if somebody can make a cleanroom agent that can explore and document specifications for commercial software, you could maybe throw ralph at building it, but then you still have to work out the parts that dont have documentation/training details, like how you are going to maintain it

the loop is pretty perfect for something like "my dependency updated. decide whether to update to match, and then execute"

itll do the mediocre job and then keep trying till it gets something working, at probably the most expensive token cost possible
by FreakLegion | 2026-01-27 22:29:16+00:00
> It's nothing to do with the scale being small or large if you actually read her research studies

You appear to be responding to the words 'global' and 'local', which are terms from mathematical optimization and have quite literally nothing to do with 'scale'.

That aside, you continue to misunderstand all of this on a basic level. The tragedy of the commons is a description of a dynamic. That dynamic is real. Ostrom acknowledged that it's real. Her work has value because it's real. Your repeated claim that she "disproved" it is simply wrong. There's nothing else to say here.

On that note, given your struggles with the subject matter, maybe don't accuse other people of being LLMs.
by rpdillon | 2026-01-27 22:29:38+00:00
I'm a Costco booster, and I have storage space. One of the greatest feelings for me is returning from a Costco and knowing I have enough in the house to last a month for a family of four.

But your second point is spot-on: this strategy has to be augmented by weekly (or more) runs to get fresh food. I like to make fried rice with vegetables, so having a local market is essential.
by brailsafe | 2026-01-27 22:30:12+00:00
I have doubts most overconsumers of fast food are just getting burgers... like effectively nobody. Is it more likely that people damage themselves with cheeseburgers or the soda that comes with them?

I tried to eat as many cheeseburgers as I could in one sitting (I easily eat double the amount of food of others in one sitting normally), and tapped out at 10 or something, which is impractical and gross, there's a physical limit unless you have certain conditions

If you only go to fast food once a week or less with your kid as a treat, I feel like you could probably exclude soda and fries and tell them to get as many burgers as they want, but they have to eat them all, and it would be more of a lesson than anything lol
by adev_ | 2026-01-27 22:30:26+00:00
> Then, some topics becoming political taboo where the unorthodox opinion would get you fired and canceled

This is garbage.

What you describe might be the case in some social-sciences circles but never has been the case in most STEMs fields.

If you have a (sensical) unorthodox idea that displease a research director, 10 other research directors will be very happy to dig up this exact idea in a slightly different context.

This is how sciences progress.
by olig15 | 2026-01-27 22:30:41+00:00
Not trying to defend windows, but this is probably more likely down the stupid defaults Windows has by the fact it hides extensions by default. So if you name a file foo.pdf, you’ll see it as ‘foo.pdf’ but it’s actually called ‘foo.pdf.txt’. I can’t for the life of me figure out why this is the default, but it’s been this way for decades.
by qbit42 | 2026-01-27 22:31:43+00:00
Loads of researchers have only used LaTeX via Overleaf and even more primarily edit LaTeX using Overleaf, for better or worse. It really simplifies collaborative editing and the version history is good enough (not git level, but most people weren't using full git functionality). I just find that there are not that many features I need when paper writing - the main bottlenecks are coming up with the content and collaborating, with Overleaf simplifying the latter. It also removes a class of bugs where different collaborators had slightly different TeX setups.

I think I would only switch from Overleaf if I was writing a textbook or something similarly involved.
by dragonwriter | 2026-01-27 22:31:52+00:00
Bail agents can usually enter the home of the subject without additional consent due to clauses in the contract of the bail bond, but not (without the owners consent) homes owned by third parties even if the target is present.

Criminals are also frequently gullible.

And bail agents are fairly notorious as a group for having a less than scrupulous attention to legal restrictions.

So, a mix of things, really.
by toomuchtodo | 2026-01-27 22:32:25+00:00
Bond market controls interest rates, not the Fed. Can't fool or pressure the bond market.

The bond market keeps the score - https://www.axios.com/2026/01/22/trump-tariffs-bond-market-f... | https://archive.today/FIvDs - January 22nd, 2026

https://www.weforum.org/podcasts/meet-the-leader/episodes/da... ("The Fed doesn't really set interest rates," JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in Davos.)

(“I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the President or the Pope or as a 400 basball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.” — James Carville; global bond market is ~$145 trillion)
by 8note | 2026-01-27 22:32:38+00:00
nothing says its the people getting promotions that are making the value.

there's still plenty of people not on that grind trying to make whatever thing nearby them work, or have other career goals than promotion or money

that promo option getting people who want to build a bunch of junk out of the way and into positions where they arent building stuff might be relevant to why those companies are succeeding
by filoeleven | 2026-01-27 22:32:40+00:00
Remember: there was a TikTok ban that was signed into law and took effect on January 19, 2025 which said that it would be allowed back once it was owned by a US company.

Trump did not enforce the ban.

As soon as TikTok changed ownership last week, censorship of posts that are not in line with the Trump regime began happening.
by rolph | 2026-01-27 22:33:01+00:00
it takes about 2seconds to draw a weapon line up on target and shoot.

it also takes about 2seconds to move 20feet.

for these reasons a 20' radius is a "retention" zone. anyone closer than 20' has a large probability of successfully rushing you and engaging for physical control of the weapon.

watch what an LEO does when this zone is entered, it is a good indicator of the frame of mind, do they say "stop right there", or mantle thier weapon?

if you were to stop at 20' just because, you may be told to "cmon over here"
or LEO may become wary or softly hostile, as you may be aware of retention training as well, and intend to engage.
by palata | 2026-01-27 22:33:03+00:00
> In other industries this would be a gross ethical issue and potentially a legal one

Yes, but this is not another industry. Also in other industries, some say that "full self-driving is coming tomorrow" or "we can send millions of people to live on mars".

> public criticism for public fraudulence is "harassment", I guess? C'mon, man.

I never said "don't criticise". I have seen comments that I found very disrespectful early when this post started growing, and I tried to call for some empathy for the human being who made that mistake.
by munificent | 2026-01-27 22:34:18+00:00
I don't know anything about planning and battle.

But as a metaphor for other creative pursuits, my experience is that most of the time when people are "planning" or working on other things that they like to believe will help them do the thing... they are really just avoiding doing the thing.

People spend years doing "world-building" and writing character backgrounds and never write the damn book. Aspiring musicians spend thousands collecting instruments and never make a song.

As you say, if it's just for fun, that's all fine. But if the satisfaction you want comes from the result of the thing, you have to do the thing.
by fogzen | 2026-01-27 22:34:30+00:00
The linked tweets seem like exaggerations or hyperbole. "I shipped 22 PRs yesterday, and 27 the day before" – huh? Are these PRs just one-liner copy changes or something? Even if you're not coding, you have to at least be verifying the changes right? At 15min to run CI and deploy, that's 5.5 hours spent just for changes to go into production. Spending just 15minutes to review and verify and 15minutes to merge and deploy 22 changes is 11 hours, no breaks, no meals. Smells like bullshit to me.
by bigiain | 2026-01-27 22:34:36+00:00
An example of common terms that disagrees with that somewhat, is "CAD/CAM" where the design component is clearly distinct from the manufacturing component.

I do agree that historically, software aimed at building 3d models for games/animations and other digital use was usually called modeling and not cad. I'm thinking of software like 3D Studio Max back in the 90s here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAD/CAM

I notice though that the Wikipedia article for CAD says: "This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve communications through documentation, and to create a database for manufacturing."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer-aided_design
by henryfjordan | 2026-01-27 22:34:37+00:00
I can get a cheeseburger delivered, or there's a dozen places within a 15 minute walk to get one. I can hardly leave the house without seeing an ad for one or some other fast food item on the side of a bus. I can't avoid being hungry, but I can leave my phone at home.

Sure it's a matter of degrees but I don't see a bright line between McDonald's and tiktok. Both want me hooked on their product. Both have harmful aspects. Both have customers they know are over-indulging. Why would only tiktok be liable for that?
by AndrewKemendo | 2026-01-27 22:34:56+00:00
I genuinely don’t see scientific journals and conferences continuing to last in this new world of autonomous agents, at least the same way that they used to be.

As other top level posters have indicated the review portion of this is the limiting factor

unless journal reviewers decide to utilize entirely automated review process, then they’re not gonna be able to keep up with what will increasingly be the most and best research coming out of any lab.

So whoever figures out the automated reviewer that can actually tell fact from fiction, is going to win this game.

I expect over the longest period, that’s probably not going to be throwing more humans at the problem, but agreeing on some kind of constraint around autonomous reviewers.

If not that then labs will also produce products and science will stop being in public and the only artifacts will be whatever is produced in the market
by mrguyorama | 2026-01-27 22:35:08+00:00
There were plenty at the time insisting it was not needed, that TSA was an overreaction, that it was clearly grift to people connected to the Bush Admin, that we don't need to do anything even. They all pointed out that DHS was clearly an internal anti-dissent force, to be used against american citizens for daring to critique a government of grift and lies and authoritarianism taking away our rights.

They were all decried as "anti-american" or worse epithets.

They were all correct of course.

They are all being decried again right now.

It was literally called "The Patriot Act" FFS. You really think it was about security?

Note that the reason none of the passengers were ever able to regain control of the planes was the exact security measure that actually protects us now: The cockpit door. It literally doesn't matter what happens in the plane cabin, nobody can hijack a plane in the current system.

Again, TSA currently cannot catch someone going through security with plastic explosives, in their own self tests.
by jcgl | 2026-01-27 22:36:17+00:00
Maybe to some degree that's true. But let's take an example: GNOME is the only (afaik) desktop that requires client-side decorations. They've been like that for years, but nobody else is following them on that. Yes, the toolkits and a number of toolkit-less apps have added support for them. But it's not like they were actually able to employ their gravity to change the world over to CSD (thank goodness).
by defrost | 2026-01-27 22:36:31+00:00
Reduction of the response to the level of the Whitehouse which has been posting totally doctored images for much of 2025 + 2026.

> You get why that would be worse, right?

You understand this discussion has been implicit since the initial comment I first made above when I first referred to the image?

I dare say we come from different English as a First Language countries as you appear to be fixated on hammering out the obvious as if I was unaware.

Returning to your assertion that the image poster, General 'Tony' Thomas "has fallen for an AI hoax photo" I would ask you:

* was he really unaware this was a processed image?

* does that matter?

* does this affect his messaging, that in his opinion the state is executing civilians?

It's been kind of totally completely obvious to the meanest intellect from the outside looking in that the US has been circling down the drain of reduced attention span and increased meme battles for, what, a good decade at least now?

It's now hit the highest echelons and become embedded in both sides of the aisle and the military .. has SCOTUS started filing memes yet?
by skissane | 2026-01-27 22:36:46+00:00
Variation I thought of on pay-to-review:

Suppose you are an independent researcher writing a paper. Before submitting it for review to journals, you could hire a published author in that field to review it for you (independently of the journal), and tell you whether it is submission-worthy, and help you improve it to the point it was. If they wanted, they could be listed as coauthor, and if they don't want that, at least you'd acknowledge their assistance in the paper.

Because I think there are two types of people who might write AI slop papers: (1) people who just don't care and want to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks; (2) people who genuinely desire to seriously contribute to the field, but don't know what they are doing. Hiring an advisor could help the second group of people.

Of course, I don't know how willing people would be to be hired to do this. Someone who was senior in the field might be too busy, might cost too much, or might worry about damage to their own reputation. But there are so many unemployed and underemployed academics out there...
by Mordisquitos | 2026-01-27 22:37:05+00:00
> Put another way: If McDonalds sees I eat 5 cheeseburgers a day, at what point do they have to stop serving me for my own health? Do they need to step in at all?

Is McDonald's adjusting the flavour and ingredients of each cheeseburger it serves you with the express purpose of encouraging you to order the next one as soon as possible?
by youarentrightjr | 2026-01-27 22:37:05+00:00
> Trusted boot is literally a form of DRM. A different one than remote attestation.

No, it's not. (And for that matter, neither is remote attestation)

You're conflating the technology with the use.

I believe that you have only thought about these technologies as they pertain to DRM, now I'm here to tell you there are other valid use cases.

Or maybe your definition of "DRM" is so broad that it includes me setting up my own trusted boot chain on my own hardware? I don't really think that's a productive definition.
by cucumber3732842 | 2026-01-27 22:37:17+00:00
They've always treated white nationalists and other weirdos like this. I mean, the whole "any infraction is a grounds for execution" ROE is very reminiscent of Ruby Ridge, for example.

But the kind of white people we have here have never really had anything in common with those people so now that the Feds are coming after people of the sort of political persuasion they identify with for the first time since, the 1970s it "feels" like they're just now going after white people.
by xmcp123 | 2026-01-27 22:37:24+00:00
Honestly Miller strikes me different. It’s not coincidence he’s survived so long.

He’s not an idiot. He knows how much damage he can absorb and how to position himself to not take more than that. He never positions himself as the implementation person who will take the hits. He’s the idea guy, and the manipulator/cheerleader. He doesn’t seem to expect trump to take care of him for his loyalty, so he doesn’t position himself to require it.

I think ultimately he won’t be thrown under the bus because his relationship with Trump is mutually beneficial, and they both see it as transactional. For both of them, the other is a means to an end. Soul mates in hell I guess.
by epistasis | 2026-01-27 22:37:40+00:00
I don't what you are talking about but it's nonsense and offensive, a bald faced lie so outrageous that people are supposed to be shocked into silence?

The tactics being used are:

* whistles
* recording with phones
* free speech
* communication with neighbors
* sharing with neighbors, ala potlucks
* training each other on legal means of resistance
* caring for people kicked out of detention centers in the dead of winter without their coats or phones
* bringing meals to families that are afraid to leave the house, since the political persecution is largely a function of skin color, as numerous police chiefs have attested when recounting what ICE/CBP does to their officers when off duty.

Calling this "insurgent tactics" instead of neighbors being neighbors is most definitely a perverse and disgusting values assessment. When the hell have insurgents used the whistle and the phone camera as their "tactics"?!

Saying that this lawful activity, all 100% lawful, somehow "impedes federal enforcement of laws" is actually a statement that the supposed enforcement is being conducted in a completely lawless, unconstitutional, and dangerous manner.

Keep on talking like you are, because people right now are sniffing out who is their neighbor and who will betray them when ICE moves on to the next city. Your neighbors probably already know, but being able to share specific sentences like "insurgent tactics" and how cameras are somehow "impeding" masked men abducting people, when days later we don't even know the identity of officers that shot and killed a man on film, who was in no way impeding law enforcement. And the only people who talk about "impeding law enforcement" also lie profusely when there is direct evidence on film contradicting their lies.

There is terrorism going on, there is lawlessness, there is a great deal of elevated crime in Minnesota, but it all the doing of masked ICE/CBP agents that face zero accountability for breaking our laws and violating our most sacred rights.
by ddtaylor | 2026-01-27 22:38:01+00:00
47 CFR Part 2 and Part 15

FCC devices are certified / allowed to use a spectrum, but you must maintain compliance. If you're a mobile phone manufacturer you have to be certain that if a bug occurs, the devices don't start becoming wifi jammers or anything like that.

This means you need to be able to push firmware updates over the air (OTA). These must be signed to avoid just anyone to push out such an OTA.

The government has a history of compelling companies to push out signed updates.
by overfeed | 2026-01-27 22:38:09+00:00
> The effort to review this stuff is now massively more than the effort to "create" it

I don't doubt the AI companies will soon announce products that will claim to solve this very problem, generating turnkey submission reviews. Double-dipping is very profitable.

It appears LLM-parasitism isn't close to being done, and keeps finding new commons to spoil.
by Zak | 2026-01-27 22:39:18+00:00
Prior to 2020, I usually voted for third parties so I do understand that kind of thinking. The danger Trump represented was not obvious until well after he took office; it seemed early on like congress and institutional norms would restrain him. To swing the popular vote in the 2024 election, almost all of the third party votes would have needed to go to Harris, so I don't think that's sufficient to explain it.

By the end of his first term, the danger was hard to miss, and the attempt to remain in power after losing the election should have cemented it for everyone.

I was unhappy with Biden and Harris. I voted for them in 2020 and 2024 anyway because I understood the alternative.
by rpdillon | 2026-01-27 22:40:50+00:00
This is such an important point. As a father of two, children are turning out to be a very large investment...larger than anything else I ever will pour money into, probably by an order of magnitude (though not quite, since I have a house).

I talk to lots of people in SV, heads of design, engineers, as well as folks from around the world that I work with, from San Diego to Argentina and Chile. So many 20-30 year-olds have told me they are never having kids. Life is too fun, and they want to see the world. But training the next generation is hard work, and it's easy to do a terrible job. We want to incentivize people to have kids and be great parents. But that requires voluntary sacrifice, which is a hard sell.

If I hadn't had kids, I could retire now. As it is, I'll be lucky to be able to work and get a job so I can earn for the next couple of decades so I have enough to retire.
by 1attice | 2026-01-27 22:41:09+00:00
Existentialism might say, "there isn't one; there never was; the meaning you felt has gone somewhere else, like a kite suddenly slack on the string."

You have to find out where the winds are blowing, especially your winds.

Retrieve your kite and find another hill. <3 is what I am doing. Not leaving industry exactly, but reshuffling my sources of meaning