4 ms·

Down to -4. Is this generic LLM-dislike, or a reaction to perceived over-self-promotion, or something else? No matter how much you hate LLM stuff I think it's

by simonw 11mo ago

Down to -4. Is this generic LLM-dislike, or a reaction to perceived over-self-promotion, or something else? No matter how much you hate LLM stuff I think it's useful to know that there's a working proof of concept of this library compiled to WASM and working as a Python library. I didn't plan to share this on HN but then MicroQuickJS showed up on the homepage so I figured people might find it useful. (If I hadn't disclosed I'd used Claude for this I imagine I wouldn't have had any down-votes here.)

colesantiago 11mo ago
It is because you keep over promoting AI almost every day of the week in the HN comments. In this particular case AI has nothing to do with Fabrice Bellard. We can have something different on HN like what Fabrice Bellard is up to. You can continue AI posting as normal in the coming days.
- simonw 11mo ago
  Forget about the AI bit. Do you think it's interesting that MicroQuickJS can be used from Python via FFI or as a compiled module, and can also be compiled to WebAssembly and called from Node.js and Deno and from Pyodide running in a browser? ... and that it provides a useful sandbox in that you can robustly limit both the memory and time allowed, including limiting expensive regular expression evaluation? I included the AI bit because it would have been dishonest not to disclose how I used AI to figure this all out.
  - eichin 11mo ago
    Usually I watch your stuff very closely (and positively) because you're pushing the edges of how LLMs can be useful for code (and are a lot more honest/forthwright than most enthusiasts about it Going Horribly Wrong and how much work you need to do to keep on top of it.) This one... looks like a crossbar of random things that don't seem like things anyone would actually want to do? Mentioning the sandboxing bit in the first post would have helped a lot, or anything that said why that particular modes are interesting.
    - simonw 11mo ago
      Yeah, I failed completely to explain the context here. I'm currently on a multi-year side-quest to find safe ways to execute untrusted user-provided code in my Python and web applications. As such, I pay very close attention to any new language or library that looks like it might be able to provide a robust sandbox. MicroQuickJS instantly struck me as a strong candidate for that, and initial protoyping has backed that up. None of that was clear from my original comment.
      - Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
        I had been in a similar boat and here are some softwares that I recommend or would discuss with you https://github.com/libriscv/libriscv https://github.com/libriscv/libriscv (I talked with the author of this project, amazing author fwsgonzo is amazing) and they told me that this has the least latency out of any sandbox at only minor consequence of performance that they know of Btw for sandboxing, kvm itself feels good too and I had discussed it with them in their discord server when they had mentioned that they were working on a minimal kvm server which has since been open sourced (https://github.com/varnish/tinykvm https://github.com/varnish/tinykvm) Honestly Simon, Deno hosting/the way deno works is another good interesting tidbit for sandboxing. I wish something like deno's sandboxing capabilities came to python perhaps since python fans can appreciate it. I will try to look more into your github repository too once I get more free.
      - claar 11mo ago
        Ah, reading this comment makes your original post 10x more interesting. I guess this is "start with why" in action. :)
      - AtlasBarfed 11mo ago
        It is depressing the age of llm coding power came during python and JavaScript. Unfortunately it means those languages will be the permanent coding platforms.
        justatdotin 11mo ago
  - alabhyajindal 11mo ago
    It's interesting but I don't think it belongs as a comment under this post. I can use LLMs to create something tangential for each project posted on HN, and so can everyone else. If we all started doing this then the comment section will quickly become useless and not on point.
    - Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
      Offtopic but I went to your website and saw that you created hackernews-mute and recently I was commenting about how one must have created such an extension and ranted about it. So kudos for you to have created it earlier on. Maybe we HN users have minds in sync :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359396#46359695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359396#46359695 Have a nice day! Awesome stuff, would keep an eye on your blog, Does your blog/website use mataroa by any chance as there are some similarities even if they are both minimalist but overall nice!
      - alabhyajindal 11mo ago
        Thank you! I don't use Mataroa but I can see the similarities. My current blog setup is a Python script that parses content written in markdown and emits HTML. The CSS is inspired by the other minimal blogs I see here. Thanks a lot for checking out my blog/project. Have a great day!
      - KomoD 11mo ago
        I have something like that but as a userscript and with a toggle, it works pretty well for my needs. Maybe someone finds it useful: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/rD6Dz7hN2V/ https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/rD6Dz7hN2V/
        Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
        Awesome stuff :D Thanks for sharing it.
    - keeganpoppen 11mo ago
      but there is signal in what people are inspired to do upon seeing a new project-- why not simply evaluate the interestingness level of these sorts of mashups on their own terms? it actually feels very "hacker"-y to go out and show people possibilities like this. i have no particular comment on how "interesting" the derivative projects are in this case, but i have a feeling if his original post had been framed more like "i think it's super interesting how easy it is to use via FFI on various runtimes X & Y (oh btw in the spirit of full transparency: i used ai to help me. and you can see more details at <link>). especially because i think everyone who peruses HN with some regularity is likely to know of simon's work in at least some capacity, and i am-- speaking only for myself-- essentially always interested in any sort of project he embarks on, especially his llm-assisted experiments and stuff. but hey-- at the end of the day, all of this value judgment is realized as plainly as possible with +1 / -1 (up- and down-vote) and i guess it just is what it is. if number bad, HN no like. shrug.
  - Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
    Simon although I find it interesting. And I respect you in this field. I still feel like the reason people call out AI usage or downvote in this case is that in my honest opinion, it would be also more interesting to see people actually write the code and more so (maintain) it as well and create a whole community/github project around microquickjs wasm itself I read this post of yours https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-proven-to-work/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-proven-to-work/ and although there is a point that can be made that what you are doing isn't a job and I myself create prototypes of code using AI, long term (in my opinion) what really matters are the maintainance and claim (like your article says in a way, that I can pin point a person whose responsible for code to work) If I find any bug right now, I wouldn't blame it on you but AI and I have varying amount of trust on it My opinion on the matter is that for prototyping AI can be considered good use but long term it definitely isn't and I am sure that you share a similar viewpoint. I think that AI is so contrasting that there stops existing any nuance. Read my recent comment (although warning, its long) (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359684) Perhaps you can build a blog post about the nuance of AI? I imagine that a lot of people might share a similar aspect of AI policy where its okay to tinker with it. I am part of the new generation and trust be told I don't think that there becomes much incentives long term unless someone realizes things of not using AI because using AI just feels so lucrative for especially the youngsters. I am 17 years old and I am going to go into a decent college with (might I add immense competition to begin with) when I have passion about such topics but only to get dissuaded because the benchmark of solving assignments etc. are done by AI and the signal ratio of universities themselves are reducing but they haven't reduced to the point that they are irrelevant but rather that you need to have a university to try to get a job but companies have either freezed hiring which some point out with LLM's If you ask me, Long term to me it feels like more people might associate themselves with hobbyist computing and even using AI (to be honest sort of like pewdiepie) without being in the industry. I am not sure what the future holds for me (or for any of us as a matter of fact) but I guess the point I am trying to state is that there is nuance to the discussion from both sides Have a nice day!
halfmatthalfcat 11mo ago
I downvoted because I'm tired of people regurgitating how they've done this or that with whatever LLM of the week on seemingly every technical post. If you care that much, write a blog post and post that, we don't need low effort LLM show and tell all day everyday.
- simonw 11mo ago
  Here you go: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/23/microquickjs/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/23/microquickjs/
  - halfmatthalfcat 11mo ago
    No I mean post it as an HN post and if anybody cares to see it, they'll upvote that and comment in there. That, instead of pigging backing on other posts to get visibility.
    - simonw 11mo ago
      I genuinely don't think it's interesting enough to warrant a top level post. It's interesting enough to be in a comment though!
      - yeasku 11mo ago
        And people think is not interesting enoug and downvote you.
  - lioeters 11mo ago
    I love it, I find the note interesting, educational, and adds to the discussion in context. Guess you're bound to get a few haters when you share your work in public, but I for one appreciate all your posts, comments, articles, open-source projects.
petercooper 11mo ago
Your tireless experimenting (and especially documenting) is valuable and I love to see all of it. The avant garde nature of your recent work will draw the occasional flurry of disdain from more jaded types, but I doubt many HN regulars would think you had anything but good intentions! Guess I am basically just saying.. keep it up.
claar 11mo ago
I think many subscribe to this philosophy: https://distantprovince.by/posts/its-rude-to-show-ai-output-to-people/ https://distantprovince.by/posts/its-rude-to-show-ai-output-... Your github research/ links are an interesting case of this. On one hand, late AI adopters may appreciate your example prompts and outputs. But it feels like trivially reproducible noise to expert LLM users, especially if they are unaware of your reputation for substantive work. The HN AI pushback then drowns out your true message in favor of squashing perceived AI fluff.
- simonw 11mo ago
  Yeah, I agree that it's rude to show AI output to people... in most cases (and 100% if you don't disclose it.) My simonw/research GitHub repo is deliberately separate from everything else I do because it's entirely AI-generated. I wrote about that here: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/6/async-code-research/#this-is-total-slop-of-course https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/6/async-code-research/#th... This particular case is a very solid use-case for that approach though. There are a ton of important questions to answer: can it run in WebAssembly? What's the difference to regular JavaScript? Is it safe to use as a sandbox against attacks like the regex thing? Those questions can be answered by having Claude Code crunch along, produce and execute a couple of dozen files of code and report back on the results. I think the knee-jerk reaction pushing back against this is understandable. I'd encourage people not to miss out on the substance.
  - lossolo 11mo ago
    And again you're linking to your site. Maybe try pasting the few relevant sentences instead of constantly pushing your content in almost every comment. That's what people find annoying. Maybe link to other people's stuff more, or just write what you think here on HN. If someone wants to read your blog, they will, they know it exists, and some people even submit your new articles here. There's no need to do what you're doing. Every day you're irritating more people with this behavior, and eventually the substance won't matter to them anymore, so you're acting against your own interests. Unless you want people to develop the same kind of ad blindness mechanism, where they automatically skip anything that looks like self promotion. Some people will just see a comment by simonw and do the same. A lot of people have told you this in many threads, but it seems you still don’t get it.
SeanAnderson 11mo ago
I didn't downvote you. You're one of "the AI guys" to me on HN. The content of your post is fine, too, but, even if it was sketch, I'd've given you the benefit of the doubt.
garganzol 11mo ago
Thank you for sharing. A lot of HN people got cut by AI in one way or another, so they seem to have personal beefs with AI. I am talking about not only job shortages but also general humbling of the bloated egos.
- foobarchu 11mo ago
  > I am talking about not only job shortages but also general humbling of the bloated egos. I'm gonna give you the benefit for the doubt here. Most of us do not dislike genAI because we were fired or "humbled". Most of us dislike it because a) the terrible environmental impacts, b) the terrible economic impacts, and c) the general non-production-readiness of results once you get past common, well-solved problems Your stated understanding comes off a little bit like "they just don't like it because they're jealous".
- wartywhoa23 11mo ago
  I'm constanly encountering this "bloated ego" argument every time the narrative is being steered away to prevent monetary losses for AI companies. Especially so when it concerns AI theft of human music and visual art. "Those pompous artists, who do they think they are? We'll rob them of their egos". The problem is that these ego-accusations don't quite come from egoless entities.
  - garganzol 11mo ago
    It is not about artists per ce, it is about manipulative entities. For any manipulation to succeed, one has to create a fog, disorientation, muddy waters. AI brings clarity. This results in a lot of pain for those who tried to hijack the game in one way or another. From the psychological point of view, AI is a mirror of one's personality. Depending on who you are, you see different reflections: someone sees a threat, others see the enlightenment.
    - wartywhoa23 11mo ago
      AI brings clarity. Do you mean that kind of clarity when no audio/video evidence is a proof of anything anymore? > This results in a lot of pain for those who tried to hijack the game in one way or another. I'm not quite sure if any artists, designers, musicians and programmers whose work was used to train AI without their consent tried to manipulate anyone or hijack anything. Care to elaborate?
alex_suzuki 11mo ago
I think the people interacting with this post are just more likely to appreciate the raw craftsmanship and talent of an individual like Bellard, and coincidentally might be more critical of the machinery that in their perception devalues it. I count myself among them, but didn’t downvote, as I generally think your content is of high quality.
TheTaytay 11mo ago
I was hoping you experimented with this! I am right there with you, hoping for an easier wasm sandbox for LLMs. (Keep posting please. Downvotes due to mentioning LLMs will be perceived as a quaint historic artifact in the not so distant future…)
- wartywhoa23 11mo ago
  On the contrary, it's pretty possible that LLMs themselves will be perceied as a quaint historic artefact and join the ranks of mechanical turks, zeppelins, segways, google glasses and blockchains.
  - TeodorDyakov 11mo ago
    That is extremely unlikely.
  - johnfn 11mo ago
    If you can operationalize this I’ll happily take a bet against this, and offer you great odds.
yeasku 11mo ago
Because it adds nothing to the conversation. Im
- johnfn 11mo ago
  How does executing MicroQuickJS from Python not have anything to do with MicroQuickJS?
dangoodmanUT 11mo ago
I appreciated it. I have no idea why someone would downvote it other than spite
johnfn 11mo ago
I appreciate all your work and I did not downvote you. One suggestion, though, is that the README looks very AI generated, which makes the project feel low effort, like you just said “hey Claude do a security analysis of this package”. I don’t think this is actually what you did, but it’s hard to know. It’s also very difficult to identify the highlights. Just a few handwritten sentences would be better.
- simonw 11mo ago
  The README is indeed AI generated, as is everything else in that simonw/research repository - it's my public demo of the asynchronous research process I use.
  - simonw 11mo ago
    (I'm going to add disclaimers to the top of every one of those posts, currently you have to navigate to the report homepage to find that out.) Update - added that here: https://github.com/simonw/research/pull/53 https://github.com/simonw/research/pull/53
jmull 11mo ago
I don't know why people are downvoting your comment, but it could be considered a low-effort post: here's (a link to) something I prompted AI with, here's (a link to) what it produced (the whole repo). I would guess people don't know how you expect them to evaluate this, so it comes off as spamming us with a bunch of AI slop. (That C can be compiled to WASM or wrapped as a python library isn't really something that needs a proof-of-concept, so again it could be understood as an excuse to spam us with AI slop.)
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]

by simonw 11mo ago

colesantiago 11mo ago

It is because you keep over promoting AI almost every day of the week in the HN comments. In this particular case AI has nothing to do with Fabrice Bellard. We can have something different on HN like what Fabrice Bellard is up to. You can continue AI posting as normal in the coming days.

simonw 11mo ago
Forget about the AI bit. Do you think it's interesting that MicroQuickJS can be used from Python via FFI or as a compiled module, and can also be compiled to WebAssembly and called from Node.js and Deno and from Pyodide running in a browser? ... and that it provides a useful sandbox in that you can robustly limit both the memory and time allowed, including limiting expensive regular expression evaluation? I included the AI bit because it would have been dishonest not to disclose how I used AI to figure this all out.
- eichin 11mo ago
  Usually I watch your stuff very closely (and positively) because you're pushing the edges of how LLMs can be useful for code (and are a lot more honest/forthwright than most enthusiasts about it Going Horribly Wrong and how much work you need to do to keep on top of it.) This one... looks like a crossbar of random things that don't seem like things anyone would actually want to do? Mentioning the sandboxing bit in the first post would have helped a lot, or anything that said why that particular modes are interesting.
  - simonw 11mo ago
    Yeah, I failed completely to explain the context here. I'm currently on a multi-year side-quest to find safe ways to execute untrusted user-provided code in my Python and web applications. As such, I pay very close attention to any new language or library that looks like it might be able to provide a robust sandbox. MicroQuickJS instantly struck me as a strong candidate for that, and initial protoyping has backed that up. None of that was clear from my original comment.
    - Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
      I had been in a similar boat and here are some softwares that I recommend or would discuss with you https://github.com/libriscv/libriscv https://github.com/libriscv/libriscv (I talked with the author of this project, amazing author fwsgonzo is amazing) and they told me that this has the least latency out of any sandbox at only minor consequence of performance that they know of Btw for sandboxing, kvm itself feels good too and I had discussed it with them in their discord server when they had mentioned that they were working on a minimal kvm server which has since been open sourced (https://github.com/varnish/tinykvm https://github.com/varnish/tinykvm) Honestly Simon, Deno hosting/the way deno works is another good interesting tidbit for sandboxing. I wish something like deno's sandboxing capabilities came to python perhaps since python fans can appreciate it. I will try to look more into your github repository too once I get more free.
    - claar 11mo ago
      Ah, reading this comment makes your original post 10x more interesting. I guess this is "start with why" in action. :)
    - AtlasBarfed 11mo ago
      It is depressing the age of llm coding power came during python and JavaScript. Unfortunately it means those languages will be the permanent coding platforms.
      - justatdotin 11mo ago
- alabhyajindal 11mo ago
  It's interesting but I don't think it belongs as a comment under this post. I can use LLMs to create something tangential for each project posted on HN, and so can everyone else. If we all started doing this then the comment section will quickly become useless and not on point.
  - Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
    Offtopic but I went to your website and saw that you created hackernews-mute and recently I was commenting about how one must have created such an extension and ranted about it. So kudos for you to have created it earlier on. Maybe we HN users have minds in sync :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359396#46359695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359396#46359695 Have a nice day! Awesome stuff, would keep an eye on your blog, Does your blog/website use mataroa by any chance as there are some similarities even if they are both minimalist but overall nice!
    - alabhyajindal 11mo ago
      Thank you! I don't use Mataroa but I can see the similarities. My current blog setup is a Python script that parses content written in markdown and emits HTML. The CSS is inspired by the other minimal blogs I see here. Thanks a lot for checking out my blog/project. Have a great day!
    - KomoD 11mo ago
      I have something like that but as a userscript and with a toggle, it works pretty well for my needs. Maybe someone finds it useful: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/rD6Dz7hN2V/ https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/rD6Dz7hN2V/
      - Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
        Awesome stuff :D Thanks for sharing it.
  - keeganpoppen 11mo ago
    but there is signal in what people are inspired to do upon seeing a new project-- why not simply evaluate the interestingness level of these sorts of mashups on their own terms? it actually feels very "hacker"-y to go out and show people possibilities like this. i have no particular comment on how "interesting" the derivative projects are in this case, but i have a feeling if his original post had been framed more like "i think it's super interesting how easy it is to use via FFI on various runtimes X & Y (oh btw in the spirit of full transparency: i used ai to help me. and you can see more details at <link>). especially because i think everyone who peruses HN with some regularity is likely to know of simon's work in at least some capacity, and i am-- speaking only for myself-- essentially always interested in any sort of project he embarks on, especially his llm-assisted experiments and stuff. but hey-- at the end of the day, all of this value judgment is realized as plainly as possible with +1 / -1 (up- and down-vote) and i guess it just is what it is. if number bad, HN no like. shrug.
- Imustaskforhelp 11mo ago
  Simon although I find it interesting. And I respect you in this field. I still feel like the reason people call out AI usage or downvote in this case is that in my honest opinion, it would be also more interesting to see people actually write the code and more so (maintain) it as well and create a whole community/github project around microquickjs wasm itself I read this post of yours https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-proven-to-work/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/18/code-proven-to-work/ and although there is a point that can be made that what you are doing isn't a job and I myself create prototypes of code using AI, long term (in my opinion) what really matters are the maintainance and claim (like your article says in a way, that I can pin point a person whose responsible for code to work) If I find any bug right now, I wouldn't blame it on you but AI and I have varying amount of trust on it My opinion on the matter is that for prototyping AI can be considered good use but long term it definitely isn't and I am sure that you share a similar viewpoint. I think that AI is so contrasting that there stops existing any nuance. Read my recent comment (although warning, its long) (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46359684) Perhaps you can build a blog post about the nuance of AI? I imagine that a lot of people might share a similar aspect of AI policy where its okay to tinker with it. I am part of the new generation and trust be told I don't think that there becomes much incentives long term unless someone realizes things of not using AI because using AI just feels so lucrative for especially the youngsters. I am 17 years old and I am going to go into a decent college with (might I add immense competition to begin with) when I have passion about such topics but only to get dissuaded because the benchmark of solving assignments etc. are done by AI and the signal ratio of universities themselves are reducing but they haven't reduced to the point that they are irrelevant but rather that you need to have a university to try to get a job but companies have either freezed hiring which some point out with LLM's If you ask me, Long term to me it feels like more people might associate themselves with hobbyist computing and even using AI (to be honest sort of like pewdiepie) without being in the industry. I am not sure what the future holds for me (or for any of us as a matter of fact) but I guess the point I am trying to state is that there is nuance to the discussion from both sides Have a nice day!

halfmatthalfcat 11mo ago

I downvoted because I'm tired of people regurgitating how they've done this or that with whatever LLM of the week on seemingly every technical post. If you care that much, write a blog post and post that, we don't need low effort LLM show and tell all day everyday.

simonw 11mo ago
Here you go: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/23/microquickjs/ https://simonwillison.net/2025/Dec/23/microquickjs/
- halfmatthalfcat 11mo ago
  No I mean post it as an HN post and if anybody cares to see it, they'll upvote that and comment in there. That, instead of pigging backing on other posts to get visibility.
  - simonw 11mo ago
    I genuinely don't think it's interesting enough to warrant a top level post. It's interesting enough to be in a comment though!
    - yeasku 11mo ago
      And people think is not interesting enoug and downvote you.
- lioeters 11mo ago
  I love it, I find the note interesting, educational, and adds to the discussion in context. Guess you're bound to get a few haters when you share your work in public, but I for one appreciate all your posts, comments, articles, open-source projects.

petercooper 11mo ago

Your tireless experimenting (and especially documenting) is valuable and I love to see all of it. The avant garde nature of your recent work will draw the occasional flurry of disdain from more jaded types, but I doubt many HN regulars would think you had anything but good intentions! Guess I am basically just saying.. keep it up.

claar 11mo ago

I think many subscribe to this philosophy: https://distantprovince.by/posts/its-rude-to-show-ai-output-to-people/ https://distantprovince.by/posts/its-rude-to-show-ai-output-... Your github research/ links are an interesting case of this. On one hand, late AI adopters may appreciate your example prompts and outputs. But it feels like trivially reproducible noise to expert LLM users, especially if they are unaware of your reputation for substantive work. The HN AI pushback then drowns out your true message in favor of squashing perceived AI fluff.

simonw 11mo ago
Yeah, I agree that it's rude to show AI output to people... in most cases (and 100% if you don't disclose it.) My simonw/research GitHub repo is deliberately separate from everything else I do because it's entirely AI-generated. I wrote about that here: https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/6/async-code-research/#this-is-total-slop-of-course https://simonwillison.net/2025/Nov/6/async-code-research/#th... This particular case is a very solid use-case for that approach though. There are a ton of important questions to answer: can it run in WebAssembly? What's the difference to regular JavaScript? Is it safe to use as a sandbox against attacks like the regex thing? Those questions can be answered by having Claude Code crunch along, produce and execute a couple of dozen files of code and report back on the results. I think the knee-jerk reaction pushing back against this is understandable. I'd encourage people not to miss out on the substance.
- lossolo 11mo ago
  And again you're linking to your site. Maybe try pasting the few relevant sentences instead of constantly pushing your content in almost every comment. That's what people find annoying. Maybe link to other people's stuff more, or just write what you think here on HN. If someone wants to read your blog, they will, they know it exists, and some people even submit your new articles here. There's no need to do what you're doing. Every day you're irritating more people with this behavior, and eventually the substance won't matter to them anymore, so you're acting against your own interests. Unless you want people to develop the same kind of ad blindness mechanism, where they automatically skip anything that looks like self promotion. Some people will just see a comment by simonw and do the same. A lot of people have told you this in many threads, but it seems you still don’t get it.

SeanAnderson 11mo ago

I didn't downvote you. You're one of "the AI guys" to me on HN. The content of your post is fine, too, but, even if it was sketch, I'd've given you the benefit of the doubt.

garganzol 11mo ago

Thank you for sharing. A lot of HN people got cut by AI in one way or another, so they seem to have personal beefs with AI. I am talking about not only job shortages but also general humbling of the bloated egos.

foobarchu 11mo ago
> I am talking about not only job shortages but also general humbling of the bloated egos. I'm gonna give you the benefit for the doubt here. Most of us do not dislike genAI because we were fired or "humbled". Most of us dislike it because a) the terrible environmental impacts, b) the terrible economic impacts, and c) the general non-production-readiness of results once you get past common, well-solved problems Your stated understanding comes off a little bit like "they just don't like it because they're jealous".
wartywhoa23 11mo ago
I'm constanly encountering this "bloated ego" argument every time the narrative is being steered away to prevent monetary losses for AI companies. Especially so when it concerns AI theft of human music and visual art. "Those pompous artists, who do they think they are? We'll rob them of their egos". The problem is that these ego-accusations don't quite come from egoless entities.
- garganzol 11mo ago
  It is not about artists per ce, it is about manipulative entities. For any manipulation to succeed, one has to create a fog, disorientation, muddy waters. AI brings clarity. This results in a lot of pain for those who tried to hijack the game in one way or another. From the psychological point of view, AI is a mirror of one's personality. Depending on who you are, you see different reflections: someone sees a threat, others see the enlightenment.
  - wartywhoa23 11mo ago
    AI brings clarity. Do you mean that kind of clarity when no audio/video evidence is a proof of anything anymore? > This results in a lot of pain for those who tried to hijack the game in one way or another. I'm not quite sure if any artists, designers, musicians and programmers whose work was used to train AI without their consent tried to manipulate anyone or hijack anything. Care to elaborate?

alex_suzuki 11mo ago

I think the people interacting with this post are just more likely to appreciate the raw craftsmanship and talent of an individual like Bellard, and coincidentally might be more critical of the machinery that in their perception devalues it. I count myself among them, but didn’t downvote, as I generally think your content is of high quality.

TheTaytay 11mo ago

I was hoping you experimented with this! I am right there with you, hoping for an easier wasm sandbox for LLMs. (Keep posting please. Downvotes due to mentioning LLMs will be perceived as a quaint historic artifact in the not so distant future…)

wartywhoa23 11mo ago
On the contrary, it's pretty possible that LLMs themselves will be perceied as a quaint historic artefact and join the ranks of mechanical turks, zeppelins, segways, google glasses and blockchains.
- TeodorDyakov 11mo ago
  That is extremely unlikely.
- johnfn 11mo ago
  If you can operationalize this I’ll happily take a bet against this, and offer you great odds.

yeasku 11mo ago

Because it adds nothing to the conversation. Im

johnfn 11mo ago
How does executing MicroQuickJS from Python not have anything to do with MicroQuickJS?

dangoodmanUT 11mo ago

I appreciated it. I have no idea why someone would downvote it other than spite

johnfn 11mo ago

I appreciate all your work and I did not downvote you. One suggestion, though, is that the README looks very AI generated, which makes the project feel low effort, like you just said “hey Claude do a security analysis of this package”. I don’t think this is actually what you did, but it’s hard to know. It’s also very difficult to identify the highlights. Just a few handwritten sentences would be better.

simonw 11mo ago
The README is indeed AI generated, as is everything else in that simonw/research repository - it's my public demo of the asynchronous research process I use.
- simonw 11mo ago
  (I'm going to add disclaimers to the top of every one of those posts, currently you have to navigate to the report homepage to find that out.) Update - added that here: https://github.com/simonw/research/pull/53 https://github.com/simonw/research/pull/53

jmull 11mo ago

I don't know why people are downvoting your comment, but it could be considered a low-effort post: here's (a link to) something I prompted AI with, here's (a link to) what it produced (the whole repo). I would guess people don't know how you expect them to evaluate this, so it comes off as spamming us with a bunch of AI slop. (That C can be compiled to WASM or wrapped as a python library isn't really something that needs a proof-of-concept, so again it could be understood as an excuse to spam us with AI slop.)

deleted 11mo ago

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