I've been hacking on my own task manager on-and-off for years (https://the.do.zone). It has no database; the primary store is the browser, and you can optionally sync to local file system (if using chrome), dropbox, or google drive (less optimal for my needs, because their js oauth implementation is very conservative about token length.) It has some crude but functional diff resolution, so that you can sync across multiple machines. Browsers _could_ provide better tooling to make this kind of app architecture more convenient to write; and theoretically you could imagine cloud providers providing some kind of standard for datastores. But there's no market for it; non techies really don't care about the location of their data to any great extent.
They do care, but not at the right point in the sales cycle. They care about the eventual bait and switch. They care about how in the face of that pack of lies they can't even recover their own data in any capacity whatsoever. They just don't recognize ahead of time that data location is a critical ingredient in preventing recurring pains they definitely know and understand.
> but without any lived experience perhaps that's an unreasonable expectation.
I don't think that follows. We learn via our perception (i.e. our inputs from the outside world); our perception is mediated by some kind of filter, and memories get written or altered. An LLM on the other hand has static weights. You can provide an LLM a "facts.md" (or whatever) file that "teaches" it stuff that's not in its weights (via the context), and it can use the combination to produce something, but that set of information never modifies its core weights. You could imagine a robot with an LLM inside it that has all kinds of sensors, and processes that write the observations from those sensors into a bunch of databases which are RAG'ed into prompts to simulate learning and experiences, perhaps (jefe likes her coffee with almond milk). But my point is that, architecturally, they don't learn - and that's the bigger obstacle.
Neither does my amygdala reshape itself and move closer to my frontal lobe, nor do my cells change their DNAs (minus damage).
Just because "the substrate" has some fixed parts doesn't materially change the equation, I think. Going even more abstract, if I have two Turing complete machines, just because one is Turing complete via some self-modification, or through some other means (e.g. game of life vs Turing machine whose states are fixed) still make them equally powerful.
Don't get me wrong, you are right to point out this shortcoming of LLMs, and I certainly don't believe we are singularity-level. I just don't think this is a good enough argument to prove these statements. A sufficiently smart intelligence that is somehow "fixed", but that can "write on paper" put in a box can't really be distinguished from a "self-modifying" intelligence. In the "worst case" it can just write down a self-modifying intelligence itself as data (since it's sufficiently smart) and execute it to emulate any kind of learning.
I wrote a framework for my own use that uses Kotlin + HTMX - https://github.com/reubenfirmin/zoned. The goal was to see if I could create webapps that were fully typed, end to end. It uses Kotlinx.html, which provides a jsx-ish dsl for writing html.
I did the first 90% by hand, and have done the last 10% (and README) with Claude, just to get it out there.
The voting system could be enough if downvoting was added.
AI writing is not the problem - low effort is the problem. Low effort AI articles are full of tics which are obvious, if you've done a lot of AI writing. To write well with AI you need to spend a good deal of time editing.
If you submit something that's low effort but has a clickbait headline that appeals to HN, you may well make the front page even if the article is lightweight (it does happen!) This is true both for AI and for human written articles.
On the flip side, somebody could spend an enormous amount of effort creating a masterpiece with AI. Penalizing that because of the tool that was used is arbitrary.
I was thinking the same. A lot of people use AI to refine their writing and make it more concise.
I do think the dead giveaways (em dashes, it's not X it's Y, etc.) are annoying to come across repeatedly. A person not bothering to remove these tells feels 'low effort' to me.
Yes; their video pertains to two specific proposals for the data centres, unfortunately I am finding that *all* the various proposals fail to make sense but for different reasons.
I recently dealt with a merchant in Aliexpress who was intentionally selling things well below market price, not to build their storefront reputation, but to collect sales and then ask the customer to cancel. I forced them to cancel the order, which harms their rep.
Literally every unmanaged, user content controlled platform devolves into the basest scams, thuggery, and unpleasantness. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Recently I attempted to return an item to AliExpress. They gave me a USPS return label with a domestic address that Google Maps showed as some generic office building. This address turned out to be an undeliverable and the package bounced back to me.
Support couldn't explain it and said I'd have to pay for a replacement label since I guess they only pay for one return per order.
I filed a chargeback instead. It was approved immediately. Surprisingly, AliExpress didn't ban my account or card, and I still shop there instead of equally terrible Amazon or eBay.
YMMV a lot with Aliexpress. I bought a $700 chiller that arrived without a small attachment fitting for the return inlet line. I complained, received another chiller (with the fitting) free. Go figure.
25 years ago if you wanted to sell a product you had to ship samples to buyers who would beat the crap out of it and if they liked it they'd place orders for 100s of thousands a month.
Amazon got it's start in that world undercutting the brick and mortar stores with their carefully curated manufacturers and buyers. In the process they completely destroyed it. Which is why 80% of the stuff for sale now is shitty.
i think you’ve hit the nail on the head. it’s the unmanaged part. it isn’t clear to me how We collectively are shocked when these marketing and execs convince us “oh, there’s nothing we can do. having customer service would be cost prohibitive. making sure there are no scams would be cost prohibitive. etc… etc…”
how about you get some customer service and protect us from scams and don’t buy your third private island and fourth mega yacht and have net worth larger than a lot of countries?
oh, that’s asking too much. you’re right, “nothing” can be done.
I don't think anything can be done, without regulation, which the USA is allergic to.
Why have customer service when the market doesn't seem to care and still buys your shit? Why crack down on scams when the market just does chargebacks, and yet keeps buying your shit?
So, we just deal with scammers, counterfeiters, drop shippers, fake brands, fake companies, fake products, all because regulation is seen as the worst thing that you could ever do to a business.
If only they would sort out their language / shipping country / currency model and make it so I can actually select what I want rather than their wrong assumption.
(And that's me having that problem in English / England / GBP, not a weird combination.)
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